ED » OECD http://www.ed.co.nz Tertiary education news and views Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:39:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 News 15/9 – Students Protest! UC Grades Up. Tramper Saved. http://www.ed.co.nz/2011/09/15/news-159-%e2%80%93-students-protest-uc-grades-up-tramper-saved/ http://www.ed.co.nz/2011/09/15/news-159-%e2%80%93-students-protest-uc-grades-up-tramper-saved/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:10:58 +0000 Dave Guerin http://www.ed.co.nz/?p=3435 Read Full Story.]]>
  • Students Protest! The students at Victoria had a noisy protest yesterday, although seemingly helped along a bit by Workers Party types. Seems about 300 turned up to hear speeches and get some free food before 50-100 went up to the Hunter Building to deliver a letter to VC Pat Walsh (not a thank you letter). Security stopped them getting up to Pat’s floor and then security pushed the protestors a bit (camera angles stop you from seeing whether the protesters pushed back, although security were also taking video so that might come out later), while the protestors used megaphones in the security staff’s faces. After a bit of loud chanting and pushing, the Police turned up and asked the students to leave, which they did. Student newspaper Salient did a good job of covering it on Twitter and you can get videos here and here from The Workers Party. It also got coverage from the Dom Post. There was an Auckland protest too, where 20 students barricaded themselves in the library, with video coverage from TV3 (and a story), and One News. At Waikato Uni, fee increases passed without a complaint.
  • UC Grades Up Student grades are up from last year, even with the quake (APNZ). Sean Scully, however, helped out others too much and dropped out – he’s OK though and check out his dog.
  • RWC My friend, Victoria’s Dean Knight tore his eyes away from the rugby to comment on the propriety of Murray McCully’s actions (Dean’s blog, NZ City). Massey’s robotic kicking leg.
  • Education at a Glance The OECD released Education at a Glance on Wed night our time. RNZ has done a piece but I wonder what the demand is for more work by ED Blog – let me know. My concern is that it’s too easy to just cherry-pick numbers from it, which only reinforces a preconceived belief.
  • Tramper Saved A CPIT outdoor recreation student was saved by helicopter from near the Lewis Pass yesterday – she developed hypothermia on a trip with a CPIT tutor and 5 other students, who continued after her rescue.
  • VSM A story on Massey’s likely response to VSM and the Greens’ Gareth Hughes’ on Steven Joyce’s impact on VSM.
  • Whale Strike Auckland’s Rochelle Constantine comments on the death of a Bryde’s Whales in the Hauraki Gulf, which was probably hit by a ship (RNZ, NZ Newswire has comments too). Massey’s Stuart Hunter and Rob Chappell did a necropsy and found it had huge injuries on one side (NZ Herald).
  • Low EFTS? Looks like Victoria is short of EFTS, the way they’re promoting their summer courses.
  • Youth Guarantee UCOL gives out Youth Guarantee places within a scholarship frame – nice way to heighten the stakes for students.
  • Global Media Dominance AUT’s Merja Myllylahti reckons that NZ media is a plaything of global finance (TV3). Never mind, ED Blog won’t sell out unless the price is right.
  • Business Link WaikatoLink and MEA Mobile have formed a commercial relationship over mobile apps.
  • Bligh Auckland’s Prof Anne Salmond is launching a new biography on William Bligh.
  • Short Bits Unitec: Rick Ede on the education mission to India. Victoria: Jim Veitch on terrorism; Sir Paul Callaghan speech. Canterbury: hospital research cited; Jarg Pettinga helps with quake queries. EIT: hosting wine awards; trades academy. Otago Poly: hot chocolate drinks. Massey: Stuart Shepherd speaking in Nelson on art; disaster management lectures; Pauline Conayne on penguins. Otago Uni: discussion on alcohol use and spare time; student raising money to honour his deceased brother in law’s charity. Media Design School: LA awards. New career choice tool. Auckland: entrepreneurs’ challenge down to last 6. Waikato: Oracle installation; Prof Roger Moltzen is new Dean of Education;
    pufferfish game for asthma kids. Nifty intern scheme announced by Wayne Mapp.
    • ]]>     http://www.ed.co.nz/2011/09/15/news-159-%e2%80%93-students-protest-uc-grades-up-tramper-saved/feed/ 0     News 10/9 – Response from Minister to Quake (Weak Effort, Too) http://www.ed.co.nz/2010/09/10/news-109-response-from-minister-to-quake-weak-effort-too/ http://www.ed.co.nz/2010/09/10/news-109-response-from-minister-to-quake-weak-effort-too/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:07:37 +0000 Dave Guerin http://www.ed.co.nz/?p=1809 Read Full Story.]]>
  • Education Performance Stats
    • The Manawatu Standard has written a story with the headline “Massey fights worst university ranking” and covers defences from the Uni, TEU and students. Of course, no-one is attacking them for that ranking…
    • The TEU’s newsletter has a review of some of the responses to the data release.
    • The Waikato Times puts a lot of stats together and shows the challenge the media will have with this data.
    • Otago Poly is celebrating that they are top in the country for degree completions at 91% (personally, I’m not sure being top in the league tables means that much and may even be negative. In any case, Whitecliffe College of Art and Design has higher degree completion results at 100%. NB Meant to point out that these are actually L7-8 qual completions, not degree completions – Otago Poly called them degree completions.)
  • Quake
    • Steven Joyce put out a media release about his visit to Christchurch, but there’s not much in it. It has less context than in this blog over the last few days and also only focuses on a few TEIs reopening - it omits SIT, Aoraki, Tai Poutini and WelTec, along with lots of PTEs and ITOs. It states that TEC and MOE staff are working with providers to open – I’d be curious to know what they’re doing. I’m not criticising those agencies, but neither has an operational focus that would seem to be that helpful to TEOs (MOE does in schools). Overall, I’m a bit confused as to why the media release went out so late and with so little useful info. I think this is the first time I’ve criticised a Joyce media release, but it really is a weak effort. He should have stuck to talking about roads and bridges.
    • The Press has more in a related story, including a request from UC for help. UC has also gained support from book and journal vendors to get free access to online material, which is important as the main library is closed. Here’s the latest VC’s update from UC - 400 staff were back yesterday.
    • KAREN is now going south through UC again and they even put a 1km temporary cable across the Waimakariri River.
    • A UC PhD student has a column in the Herald on geological issues.
    • A VUW academic is promoting his research on retrofitting houses for quake resistance.
  • Education at a Glance The OECD released their annual Education at a Glance publication on Wed. Grant Robertson suggests that the government should heed the OECD’s media release that more spending on tertiary education will lead to more jobs. Normally I would hassle Grant for running that argument, but since the OECD’s release is so monumentally facile, I’ll go for them. I went to an MOE briefing on Wed on this issue and they showed an OECD chart that had a pretty clear relationship (no correlation) that countries with more skilled people had lower income premiums over unskilled people – a simple case of demand and supply. The OECD’s argument that if you train people, growth will come, is just plain silly and not worthy of such a talented group of analysts. Education is useful, but life is more complicated than the OECD’s media release.
  • Top Ad School The Adschool at Auckland’s Media Design School has been named the fourth best advertising school of the decade by the YoungGuns Awards, which recognise the world’s hottest creative talent under the age of thirty. The Media Design School’s fourth placing is based on the number of YoungGuns awards its students have won in the last decade. Other winners included prestigious institutions such as the New York School of Visual Arts and the Miami Ad School. The Media Design School beat out Australian counterparts RMIT and AWARD School, who came 5th and 6th respectively. That is superb!
  • Student Loans Stephen Franks argues on his blog for cutting interest free student  loans.
  • KiaOraMai The service sector ITOs’ KiaOraMai customer service programme is celebrating its first year of operation.
  • Massey Star Massey’s Jacqueline Rowarth is profiled in the Dom Post – she really is a star in her media work on agriculture.
  • A Real Student Rally Six Wintec petrolhead students need $8,500 to be able to compete in next month’s Targa Rally.
  • Literacy The ITF put out a release on Wednesday about World Literacy Day but I can’t see it on their website, so no link!
  • Ballet Otago Uni’s Selwyn Ballet performed at a Rugby World Cup event yesterday. Also at Otago Uni, law students won a national competiion and a volunteer scheme is being set up.
    • ]]>     http://www.ed.co.nz/2010/09/10/news-109-response-from-minister-to-quake-weak-effort-too/feed/ 0     News 17 Feb – economic crisis, Mallard the mediator and focaccia http://www.ed.co.nz/2010/02/17/news-17-feb-economic-crisis-mallard-the-mediator-and-focaccia/ http://www.ed.co.nz/2010/02/17/news-17-feb-economic-crisis-mallard-the-mediator-and-focaccia/#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:39:46 +0000 Dave Guerin http://www.ed.co.nz/?p=218 Read Full Story.]]>
  • The OECD has released a paper on the impact of the economic crisis on education. It is based on a survey last June and is worth a quick skim for people interested in wider policy issues. I’ll be including more international content in the blog from now on, as many other people are dealing with much the same issues as us in NZ.
  • In a long-simmering parking dispute at Weltec, Trevor Mallard (the local MP) is now stepping in to help resolve matters – and his approach sounds quite reasonable. Good luck to him though, as sorting out parking issues between residents and Weltec will be tough.
  • Tairawhiti Polytechnic hosted a whakatau for its new students, attracting 300-400, which was a great number for them.
  • In a regular cooking series, an Otago Polytechnic chef can today show you how to make focaccia (ODT).
  • If you’re interested in VET capability, here are two Aussie reports. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research has released a paper titled Building capability in vocational education and training providers: The TAFE cut. John Mitchell and Associates has released a related National Survey of Vocational Education and Training (VET) Practitioner Skills. What I miss in NZ is that such papers, if ever produced, would be years apart, whereas in Australia that are both released within 12 days. Regardless of the findings (the current skill levels of the average Australian VET trainer and assessor meet only 80% of this group’s professional work requirements according to the JMA report p.8), the papers provide a useful framework for debate. Here, we’d be more likely to resort to anecdote or rhetoric (or both).
    • ]]>     http://www.ed.co.nz/2010/02/17/news-17-feb-economic-crisis-mallard-the-mediator-and-focaccia/feed/ 0