Latest news with #TertiaryEducationUnion
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Major university announces cuts to jobs and degrees
Macquarie University is set to axe more than 50 academic jobs in a proposed restructure that the Tertiary Education Union says will cut degrees in archaeology, music and ancient languages. Staff were told via videoconference on Tuesday afternoon about the 'workforce realignment' proposal for the arts and science faculties, which the university says will save it $15 million a year. The plan is to cut course offerings with low enrolments so that the institution can focus on areas of demand. The union says the arts faculty faces 42 job losses while the science and engineering faculty has 33 staff facing redundancies – a total of 75. University management quantified the figure as between 50 and 60. Staff say the reduced academic offering poses a reputational risk to the university and follows years of belt-tightening, which led to larger class sizes. Macquarie is the latest in a string of universities across NSW to retrench staff, with the University of Technology and Western Sydney University both planning to dump 400 employees. The University of Wollongong has plans to axe up to 270 positions. The job cuts come as mid-tier universities brace for reduced income from the international student market after Education Minister Jason Clare instructed immigration bureaucrats to deliberately slow the processing of visa applications once an institution reaches 80 per cent of a designated enrolment cap. The restructuring at Macquarie is part of a broader plan that its management says will bolster long-term sustainability. 'Universities in Western democracies are facing a range of external pressures and Australia is no exception. Accordingly, we are acting with a clear vision and a strong sense of responsibility to ensure our education and research remain relevant, impactful and sustainable,' vice chancellor Professor S. Bruce Dowton said.
The Age
4 days ago
- Business
- The Age
Major university announces cuts to jobs and degrees
Macquarie University is set to axe more than 50 academic jobs in a proposed restructure that the Tertiary Education Union says will cut degrees in archaeology, music and ancient languages. Staff were told via videoconference on Tuesday afternoon about the 'workforce realignment' proposal for the arts and science faculties, which the university says will save it $15 million a year. The plan is to cut course offerings with low enrolments so that the institution can focus on areas of demand. The union says the arts faculty faces 42 job losses while the science and engineering faculty has 33 staff facing redundancies – a total of 75. University management quantified the figure as between 50 and 60. Staff say the reduced academic offering poses a reputational risk to the university and follows years of belt-tightening, which led to larger class sizes. Macquarie is the latest in a string of universities across NSW to retrench staff, with the University of Technology and Western Sydney University both planning to dump 400 employees. The University of Wollongong has plans to axe up to 270 positions. The job cuts come as mid-tier universities brace for reduced income from the international student market after Education Minister Jason Clare instructed immigration bureaucrats to deliberately slow the processing of visa applications once an institution reaches 80 per cent of a designated enrolment cap. The restructuring at Macquarie is part of a broader plan that its management says will bolster long-term sustainability. 'Universities in Western democracies are facing a range of external pressures and Australia is no exception. Accordingly, we are acting with a clear vision and a strong sense of responsibility to ensure our education and research remain relevant, impactful and sustainable,' vice chancellor Professor S. Bruce Dowton said.
Scoop
5 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Universities Will Be Weakened By Budget Focus On STEM And Science
, Education correspondent Universities warn next year's funding boost for science courses and other STEM subjects won't drive up enrolments in those fields. They also calculate that the government's decision to increase funding for STEM subjects but not for most other fields next year is a net zero. That's because the Budget allowed an emergency two-year four percent funding boost to lapse. Craig Marshall, an associate professor in Otago University's School of Biomedical Sciences and member of the Tertiary Education Union's council, told RNZ without a serious funding increase, universities would increasingly struggle to offer the research-informed teaching that defined them. Marshall said the ongoing decline in university funding compared to inflation could prove fatal. "I think it'll be incremental," he said. "You'll just see small losses here and there and everywhere else and at the end of it all it's very difficult to predict what that leads to but perhaps the loss of a university." Marshall said the latest decisions meant universities would struggle to offer some humanities courses and students would start to vote with their feet. "What we're starting to see is students instead of coming to universities in New Zealand from school, they'll go to universities overseas. They see that as a better outcome," he said. "Increasingly, students opt now for postgrad graduate training outside of New Zealand, rather than in New Zealand. Some of the universities will be weakened, some may be fatally weakened." Marshall agreed the government was unlikely to let a university to go under, but one or more could lose the ability to provide the research-informed teaching that fostered critical thought - in which case it would cease to be a university in all but name. Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan said the long-term trend for university funding was poor, but none of the eight institutions was close to failing. "It's becoming challenging to basically retain our position internationally. We shouldn't care about things like international rankings, but the reality is they do send quite important signals to academic staff, to people that want to do research collaborations with New Zealand researchers and to international students," he said, referring to league tables in which New Zealand universities had been falling. "There is a tipping point where if funding got so low we were not able to maintain that quality, we would have a problem. But I don't think we're anywhere near that." However, Whelan said the net effect of the Budget was no increase to total university funding next year. He said that was about as good as the sector could have expected under the circumstances. But he said the government's decision to favour STEM subjects over humanities was mistaken. "It's an unfortunate message. There seems to be a belief that somehow universities, if they're given more funding for science, technology, engineering, maths-type subjects, can persuade students to drop doing the liberal arts or social sciences and shift across. The reality is that's just not the case," he said. Whelan said all fields of university study contributed to the skilled workforce the government said it wanted. Universities minister Shane Reti told RNZ that was correct but STEM subjects were more closely linked to productivity. "The message we're sending is that we're particularly investing and funding those courses that clearly have a pathway to productivity and economic gain and these are generally the science and the STEM subjects," he said. Reti said enrolments in those subjects had been increasing and the funding decision should encourage universities to increase the breadth and depth of their STEM programmes. He said universities were not sliding toward failure. "Across the sector, there are some who are doing well and some who are struggling and indeed have been struggling for some period of time and and are receiving extra attention support and monitoring from TEC," he said. "But if we look at the big picture, there's a significant increase in student numbers this year... It's quite a change in trend from over the previous few years where student numbers have been falling away." Reti said the government had allocated $111m over the next two years to cover growing university enrolments. He confirmed that the government had allocated enough funding to cover 99 percent of expected enrolments next year and the Tertiary Education Commission would be expected to cover the remainder from its reserves. Changing shares of the enrolment pie Education Ministry figures show the sciences have lost ground against other subjects in terms of enrolments in Bachelors degrees in the past 10 years. Considered by predominant field of study, the percentage of students enrolled in the "natural and physical sciences" dropped from 14 to 13 percent between 2024 and 2015. Health enrolments rose from 17 to 20 percent while education, management and commerce, and the creative arts all dropped slightly. Predominant field of study for 120,995 domestic students enrolled in Bachelors degree programmes in 2024 and 127,705 in 2015. Subject 2015 2024 Sciences 14 percent 13 percent IT 6 percent 7 percent Engineering 3 percent 3 percent Arch and building 2 percent 3 percent Ag, envmnt 2 percent 2 percent Health 17 percent 20 percent Education 8 percent 7 percent Mngmnt, commerce 20 percent 18 percent Society and culture 33 percent 33 percent Creative arts 11 percent 10 percent
RNZ News
6 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Universities will be weakened by Budget focus on STEM and science
A university lecture hall. Photo: AFP Universities warn next year's funding boost for science courses and other STEM subjects won't drive up enrolments in those fields. They also calculate that the government's decision to increase funding for STEM subjects but not for most other fields next year is a net zero. That's because the Budget allowed an emergency two-year four percent funding boost to lapse. Craig Marshall, an associate professor in Otago University's School of Biomedical Sciences and member of the Tertiary Education Union's council, told RNZ without a serious funding increase, universities would increasingly struggle to offer the research-informed teaching that defined them. Marshall said the ongoing decline in university funding compared to inflation could prove fatal. "I think it'll be incremental," he said. "You'll just see small losses here and there and everywhere else and at the end of it all it's very difficult to predict what that leads to but perhaps the loss of a university." Marshall said the latest decisions meant universities would struggle to offer some humanities courses and students would start to vote with their feet. "What we're starting to see is students instead of coming to universities in New Zealand from school, they'll go to universities overseas. They see that as a better outcome," he said. "Increasingly, students opt now for postgrad graduate training outside of New Zealand, rather than in New Zealand. Some of the universities will be weakened, some may be fatally weakened." Marshall agreed the government was unlikely to let a university to go under, but one or more could lose the ability to provide the research-informed teaching that fostered critical thought - in which case it would cease to be a university in all but name. Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan said the long-term trend for university funding was poor, but none of the eight institutions was close to failing. "It's becoming challenging to basically retain our position internationally. We shouldn't care about things like international rankings, but the reality is they do send quite important signals to academic staff, to people that want to do research collaborations with New Zealand researchers and to international students," he said, referring to league tables in which New Zealand universities had been falling. "There is a tipping point where if funding got so low we were not able to maintain that quality, we would have a problem. But I don't think we're anywhere near that." However, Whelan said the net effect of the Budget was no increase to total university funding next year. He said that was about as good as the sector could have expected under the circumstances. But he said the government's decision to favour STEM subjects over humanities was mistaken. "It's an unfortunate message. There seems to be a belief that somehow universities, if they're given more funding for science, technology, engineering, maths-type subjects, can persuade students to drop doing the liberal arts or social sciences and shift across. The reality is that's just not the case," he said. Whelan said all fields of university study contributed to the skilled workforce the government said it wanted. Universities are not heading towards failure, the minister says. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Universities minister Shane Reti told RNZ that was correct but STEM subjects were more closely linked to productivity. "The message we're sending is that we're particularly investing and funding those courses that clearly have a pathway to productivity and economic gain and these are generally the science and the STEM subjects," he said. Reti said enrolments in those subjects had been increasing and the funding decision should encourage universities to increase the breadth and depth of their STEM programmes. He said universities were not sliding toward failure. "Across the sector, there are some who are doing well and some who are struggling and indeed have been struggling for some period of time and and are receiving extra attention support and monitoring from TEC," he said. "But if we look at the big picture, there's a significant increase in student numbers this year... It's quite a change in trend from over the previous few years where student numbers have been falling away." Reti said the government had allocated $111m over the next two years to cover growing university enrolments. He confirmed that the government had allocated enough funding to cover 99 percent of expected enrolments next year and the Tertiary Education Commission would be expected to cover the remainder from its reserves. Education Ministry figures show the sciences have lost ground against other subjects in terms of enrolments in Bachelors degrees in the past 10 years. Considered by predominant field of study, the percentage of students enrolled in the "natural and physical sciences" dropped from 14 to 13 percent between 2024 and 2015. Health enrolments rose from 17 to 20 percent while education, management and commerce, and the creative arts all dropped slightly. Predominant field of study for 120,995 domestic students enrolled in Bachelors degree programmes in 2024 and 127,705 in 2015. Subject 2015 2024 Sciences 14 percent 13 percent IT 6 percent 7 percent Engineering 3 percent 3 percent Arch and building 2 percent 3 percent Ag, envmnt 2 percent 2 percent Health 17 percent 20 percent Education 8 percent 7 percent Mngmnt, commerce 20 percent 18 percent Society and culture 33 percent 33 percent Creative arts 11 percent 10 percent
Scoop
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Budget 2025 – A Fiscal Hole Filled By Taking From The Most Vulnerable
Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union warns that this year's budget doesn't contain enough new money to keep the lights on. Te Pou Ahurei | National Secretary Sandra Grey says 'the funding commitments made, even in the STEM subjects and those described by the ministers as 'workforce demand areas', fail to cover rising costs in the sector.' 'The shortfall of new money will be met by job cuts, increased student fees, and propping up the system by hoping more international students will come.' 'This is another example of a government that has created a fiscal hole, filling it by taking from the most vulnerable. They have done it to Māori by cancelling Whānau Ora contracts, they have done it to women by cancelling pay equity and now they are doing it to young people by making education unaffordable, and defunding subjects like arts and the humanities.' 'Instead of showing leadership by investing money in our future workforce, they would rather give tax breaks to landlords and tobacco companies.' Craig Marshall, an Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka | The University of Otago, says 'it's regrettable that this should have happened and it illustrates a failure to understand what a proper education system is.' 'For funding on STEM to almost match inflation is beneficial but most universities would be looking at ways of ensuring that their humanities programes remain viable. If you don't know the value of what people want and how they intend to use it then the thing has little value. Humanities tell us about the way people think, which is something we also need to know.'
