The Rachel Report - July

When oh when?

It’s been another long month of no election date. At the time of writing neither Labour or National have released their tertiary education policy. Why is that? The cynic in me reasons’ it is because there is little worth mentioning to be released. The glittery optimist wonders if they are working on the details of a policy giving a living allowance for all and a move to zero fees within 5 years - type of release to stun the voters with. My fingers and toes are crossed.

At a recent political panel National’s candidate acquiesced by commenting that they were pretty much in line with Labour. That other voice in my head (a result of three years in student politics) questioned this. Labour has made incremental changes, however, ripping the away the Under 25 Married & Independent Circumstances Allowances from 6000 students was not a stunning move. With massive fee increases and a solidifying of the student debt/loan scheme while in Govt. National’s history does little to endear them. Education debt – quick or slow?

Doing it for the children…

I have heard the rhetoric from both parties. “We have to consider the young kids who can’t read or write” – so increase funding, halve class sizes. “We need to consider the Health sector spend”. Damn right. With a Med grad. owing $68k, a Nursing grad. owing $20k how is the public going to afford health care in 3,5, or 10 years time. That’s if they are in the country to do so!

So lets make a List…

MMP gives us two voting options – Party and List vote. Both are powerful. To demonstrate:- say Alliance won only five electoral seats but got 50% of the 'list' vote - then they'd get 50% of the seats in the house (despite only having five electoral seats). Where do the extra 45 MPs come from - the party's list

and have a Party…

Which of the minor parties would you like to see as a potential Government partner? A vote for a minor party doesn't even mean you fully support their agenda - it simply means you think the main party should tend more towards the minor party’s view; i.e. You might not believe in the environment as much as the Greens do, but you might think that Labour needs to be more like the Greens. Since Labour are the major party their policy will always be dominate, but if they want the Greens to support them in government they're going to have to make their policies a little more green friendly.

with Quality lollies…

So the Education Minister put on gloves and had a big old clean-up of the Polytechnic Sector. Without a doubt there should be quality courses and funding where it’s needed. There needs to be caution exercised about what is needed, and who makes those decisions. It is very easy to diss a course because it does not seem relevant to YOU. It may be very relevant to someone. Every local community is diverse and has different needs. This needs to be considered carefully otherwise we will have too many (to use an abstract idea) green jellybeans and not enough black ones.

PBRF…see you real soon…

You might recognise PBRF from such shows as “University Funding system” and “Performance Based Research Fund”… now it’s coming to a Polytechnic near you… It’s the ‘newest, sexiest’ way Education institutions will be funded. Currently the EFTs system we have means 69% of your fees are govt. funded. Your user-pays fee top up makes up over ¼ of the rest. PBRF is basically a graded system based on how much research capability (people who are doing post grad. study or have PhD’s) an institution has, or is doing. The more flash people doing research the more money an institution gets. It’s not just a university thing anymore. While there are some positive aspects to PBRF it is vital to consider the implications. How will teaching/research time be allocated? Who determines what is valuable research? Will lecturers be ‘headhunted’ because of their rating? Some disturbing gender results came out of a recent AUS (Association of University Staff) survey showing that women are under-represented in many areas of this. Negotiations are underway for the round that OP will be involved in, so let’s hope it is all about quality!

Remember – OPSA is here to advocate, negotiate, agitate on your behalf. If you want to get involved in YOUR students’ association come on up to Level 1 of the Student Centre, Harbour Tce and have a chat.

Go well in your studies,
Rachel
www.tekotago.ac.nz/opsa