Budget 2025: Diversified revenue key for uni
It comes after a turbulent couple of years for the university after it reported significant deficits due to lower than projected enrollments and revenue.
Vice-chancellor Grant Robertson's commentary in the university's annual report, released this week, said there had been significant work done to find savings in the budget — in order to address permanent savings of $61.5m and return to the surplus required by the Tertiary Education Commission.
"We have made significant savings since 2023, achieving $38m of the $61.5m target set by the University Council."
Its deficit of $21.8m last year was $6.3m better than budget, but Mr Robertson acknowledged "finding the final $23.5m of savings will be challenging".
Rather than trying to find those savings all at once, the university had agreed to spread out its efforts.
"We have worked with the University Council on a plan to spread it over two years, giving us time to find savings and develop new revenue sources."
In 2023, the government propped up universities by an extra $64m per year after several institutions, including Otago, had undergone waves of restructuring and change management processes.
However, it is not known whether this funding increase will be continued for another year in tomorrow's Budget.
Mr Robertson told the Otago Daily Times he preferred not to comment ahead of the Budget.
"But clearly government funding is a significant factor in our financial approach."
Increasing student numbers was "one key way we can increase our revenue, and we are pleased with our progress this year".
"We will also seek to maximise our income from other sources — including research, commercial activities and other partnerships.
"This includes the work that we are doing in Queenstown to support the development of its technology and innovation aspirations."
The total number of equivalent fulltime students for the year-ending 2024 was 18,690; the university's strategic document Pae Tata aspires for this to increase to 24,000 by 2030.
In the international rankings, Otago ranked 214th globally and second nationally (behind University of Auckland) in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University rankings.
The year 2024 saw records broken for the number of Pacific enrolments at Otago, which now comprise a record 7.2% of total domestic enrolments, while Māori now account for a record 14% of Otago's domestic enrolments.
Tertiary Education Union co-president Craig Marshall, of Otago University, said many were still coming to terms with the "brutal" cuts in 2022 and 2023 — which led to hundreds of job losses — but there had been a feeling of "resigned optimism" of late.
"But it's not all bread and roses; the effects of the cuts still linger.
"I think perhaps there is the sense of a few green shoots. Certainly, there hasn't been the same tempo of redundancies and job losses. There have been some reorganisations.
"There are some signs that there's more consultation occurring between decision makers and the staff."
Mr Marshall said he did not expect the government to come to the party for universities in the Budget — he expected any increase not to be in line with inflation or increased student numbers.
Mr Robertson said work was continuing on many initiatives to find efficiencies, savings and new sources of revenue.
"Each division of the university has identified potential areas for this to happen and these are being worked through.
"These include reviewing programmes and papers, looking for efficiencies in our support functions and working closely with other tertiary institutions.
"There are also new papers and courses under development where we see an opportunity to enhance our academic offering."
matthew.littlewood@odt.co.nz
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Grant Robertson reveals clash with Adrian Orr over housing policy
When Grant Robertson was Finance Minister, he clashed with Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr on one memorable occasion, he has revealed in his new book. The clash occurred shortly after Labour had won a second term with a majority in the 2020 election, Robertson wrote in 'Anything Could Happen'
NZ Herald
3 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Māori wards: Mayoral candidates in three biggest New Zealand cities have differing views
Mayoral candidates in our largest cities remain divided on the issue of Māori wards. Thirty-seven local councils and five regional councils will need to hold referendums on Māori wards in the upcoming local elections next month, including Wellington City Council. Wellington mayoral candidate Andrew Little wants to see his council's
The Spinoff
3 hours ago
- The Spinoff
Six Māori words spark a debate over how children learn to read
The removal of a learn-to-read book has infuriated teachers, experts and parents – and may prove a political misstep for National, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. Educationalists call book withdrawal an overreaction The government's decision to remove the learn-to-read book At the Marae from classroom circulation has triggered a storm of criticism from teachers, principals and literacy experts. The book, designed for five-year-olds, includes six Māori words – marae, karanga, wharenui, koro, hongi and karakia – which officials argued sat uneasily within the structured literacy model now mandated in schools. Yet literacy researcher Professor Gail Gillon, who developed the wider Best Start Literacy Programme, told RNZ's John Gerritsen there was 'absolutely no evidence' children found the reader confusing. 'And in fact, our data would suggest the opposite.' Teachers have been scathing too. Writing in The Spinoff, Auckland teacher Tansy Oliver calls the decision 'insulting to our children, our teachers and our nation', warning it risks deepening the alienation Māori have long felt within the education system. A political misstep? The reaction hasn't been confined to classrooms. In the Sunday Star-Times (paywalled), editor Tracy Watkins argues the government is playing 'culture-war politics with children's learning', positioning itself alongside its more extreme coalition partners rather than the moderate voters who kept John Key in power for nearly a decade – and whom National needs in order to win next year. The removal of six kupu Māori is, Watkins says, a misjudgment that damages National more than it helps. For education minister Erica Stanford – widely seen as one of National's more centrist, liberal-friendly figures and even touted as a future leader – the row looks like an unforced error. Watkins' assessment is cutting: 'It's hard to know which will hurt National most. Being seen as aligning itself with the bigots, or making itself a laughing stock.' The structured literacy defence Stanford has been clear that the policy is not an outright ban on te reo, noting that Māori words still appear in other Ready to Read titles and are taught explicitly from Year 2 onwards. But she argues that structured literacy – rolled out nationally from the start of this year – relies on tightly sequenced phonics instruction, and kupu Māori fall outside that progression. As Oliver explains, because words such as karakia or wharenui cannot be decoded (sounded out) at the five-year-old level, they are categorised as 'heart words' that must be memorised. In Stanford's view, limiting their presence in Year 1 decodable readers is consistent with literacy science. Stanford has also pointed to an apparent parallel, reports Gerritsen: English words do not feature in readers for te reo Māori immersion schools, so it makes sense, she said, to likewise avoid Māori words in English-medium early readers. But Māori educator Rawiri Wright said that's not a fair comparison, since mainstream schools are supposed to be places where all official languages are recognised. Does te reo even need structured literacy? Beyond the current row lies another question: whether structured literacy is the right tool for teaching te reo at all. In a Conversation article, education academics Brian Tweed and Pania Te Maro criticise the 'blanket application' of the approach in kura Māori, noting that because Māori spelling is entirely phonetic, children don't face the same decoding challenges as English learners. 'Instead, pushing structured literacy into Māori-medium schools seems to be driven by an ideological commitment to this teaching approach rather than an actual need,' they write. The pair also point to the Waitangi Tribunal's 1986 declaration that 'te reo Māori is a taonga (treasure) that Māori must have control of. It's for Māori to decide on changes and innovations in the teaching and learning of the language.' That principle underscores why this debate has become so fraught: it is not only about reading pedagogy, but about who has the authority to shape the future of the Māori language.
