Move to allay student fears over course cuts

The financial difficulties facing Otago Polytechnic are scary, according to student copresident Richard Mitchell.

Low enrolments, on the back of several unfavourable Government funding changes, have left the polytechnic facing the possibility of a $1 million deficit unless it can get a cash injection from Wellington.

But whatever happened, students already enrolled would be looked after, Mr Mitchell said when contacted.

Chief executive Phil Ker has given an assurance that they are going to phase courses out, he said.

If students were in the first-year of a three-year degree course that the polytechnic judged to be not viable long-term, they would still get to finish.

The polytechnic would just stop taking new enrolments, Mr Mitchell said.

There aren’t any courses I have seen that in my opinion would need to be phased out, but I am not the one keeping the books and I see it from more of a community perspective, he said.

Mr Ker has launched an institution-wide review of the viability of courses, but it is not expected to identify many to be immediately phased out.

The polytechnic is down 230 students on last year, but much of the shortfall is spread thinly across a large number of courses.

Mr Ker said earlier this week the polytechnic was hopeful of Government funding help on the basis that its programmes were meeting the Government’s strategic objectives for the sector.

Mr Mitchell said it was not a case of the polytechnic running courses that were not relevant.

The country needed scientists, but the polytechnic had been forced to shut its science programme last year because people simply were not enrolling, he said.

While many of the factors that had contributed to the institution’s very serious financial situation were beyond its control, it was now clearly up to the polytechnic to plot a way forward.

Mr Mitchell said he had confidence in Mr Ker to lead that effort.

The polytechnic is to quicken the development of flexible delivery options for courses, to allow those in work or who can not otherwise attend full-time classroom-based courses to enrol.

It is a model Mr Ker has been advocating both at Otago and through the Tertiary Accord of New Zealand grouping of polytechnics.

Mr Mitchell said flexible delivery had a lot going for it but they would have to take care in its implementation.

Unless it was done correctly, with the right support from staff, course quality could suffer, he said.

In many situations there was no substitute for the classroom environment.

However, the polytechnic did have to act, as there was no reason to believe a cool-down in the job market, that had been a factor in low enrolments, would turn their fortunes around, he said.


This article was taken from the Saturday 8th April 2006 edition of the Otago Daily Times with the express permission of the writer, Tom McKinlay.