Weltec was required at the time to disclose in its Annual Report that the metro polytechnics’ fee to Saunders Unsworth ($33,000) because the institution’s government appointed chairperson, Roger Sowry, is also a partner at Saunders Unsworth. Mr Sowry is also the government appointed chairperson at Whitireia polytechnic and a former National Party minister.

If passed, the new bill will set up a register of lobbyists and a lobbying code of ethics. It is modelled on a public disclosure regime used in Canada.

The register will require any paid lobbyists acting on behalf of a third party for the purposes of lobbying government or representatives to be on a register of lobbyists, and to comply with its provision. Failure to register would be an offence.

Returns of lobbying activity will be filed with the Auditor-General and will disclose who is undertaking lobbying activity, who is being lobbied and what they are being lobbied about. It will be an offence to engage in lobbying activity and to not file returns with the Auditor-General.

TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey says it is disturbing that large public tertiary education institutions currently spend tens of thousands of dollars of public money so that a private lobbyist can get them access to the minister of tertiary education.

“Changing the law to shine some light on who is engaging private lobbyists is important as it would show how tertiary institutions, among other publicly-funded institutions, are attempting to buy power and influence.”

“Our experience at other tertiary institutions that have moved to trimesters is that staff, especially general staff, have higher workloads, less time to focus on team projects, less time to work collaboratively with their colleagues and there is less time to bed-in the ideas when teaching.

“For students there is a trade-off. A faster education is not necessarily a better education – if they are being rushed through to get a qualification, what they are losing is important reflective time that strengthens their learning,” said Dr Grey.

Otago Polytechnic is proposing that rather than the 32-week academic year running from about mid-February to the end of October, a new system of three 14-week trimesters running from mid-January to about the end of November.

Chief executive Phil Ker said there would be a 10-person working party, which would consult widely on the concept and report to the leadership team by September 30. If the Polytechnic adopts the proposal, it will begin in 2013.

“Otago would be the first polytechnic to introduce a trimester system,”, Mr Ker said, although Weltec had a limited third semester, operating as a summer school.

Mr Ker told the Otago Daily Times that academic staff would teach two of three trimesters, leaving them a useful block of time for non-classroom duties such as research projects, curriculum development and consultancy. Dr Grey questioned how this supposed benefit differed from current practice.

“In today’s era of tight finances, why wouldn’t students want to get their qualifications faster and save on living costs and student loans? It would also save the Government money on student loans and allowances,” said Mr Ker.

Thanks to leighblackall @ Flickr for the photo

Otago Polytechnic is urging the commission to release unused student places from other tertiary institutions as soon as possible and to allow Otago to increase its roll.

Otago Polytechnic officials have warned that if enrolment trends continue, the polytechnic could have at least 300 equivalent full-time students more than was allowed this year.

Chief xecutive Phil Ker attributed this high demand to high youth unemployment in Dunedin and Otago.

Polytechnic board chairwoman Kathy Grant and Mr Ker said in later interviews that the student roll issue – with its prospect of limiting training opportunities – was not one for the polytechnic alone, but for the wider community, given high youth unemployment in the city and the desirability of people gaining further training.

“We’re a servant of this city and of this region,” Mr Ker said.

“The polytechnic is funded for 3208 EFTS this year and is able to carry another 96 unfunded EFTS.

If the polytechnic could not secure additional places, it faced slashing its enrolment quota for the second semester by 40 percent,” Mr Ker said.

“If that happened, the polytechnic would give priority to protecting those of its programmes and schools that relied on second semester enrolment for their future economic and educational viability”.

Thanks to leighblackall @ Flickr for the photo

The Otago Daily Times reports that the University of Otago’s College of Education will designate 15 jobs redundant by the end of next year, with more position losses signalled for 2012. It also reports that 20 staff will lose their jobs or accept reduced hours at Otago Polytechnic by the end of the year.

A review of staffing at the polytechnic’s Dunedin and Cromwell campuses, and a call for voluntary redundancies and early retirements, have led to a reduction of 15.1 full-time equivalent positions, affecting about 20 staff, human resources general manager Matt Carter said yesterday.

There could be more job losses or reduced work hours to come, he said, though he could not say how many positions would be affected or when decisions might be made.

The polytechnic is blaming government funding cuts for the redundancies and reduction in hours. Tertiary institutions should be investing in staff rather than shedding them, Mr Carter said.

“Staff are quite upset. All our staff are committed to [what we do] and are frustrated we have been put in a position of having to do this to make cost savings.”

Meanwhile, at the University of Otago, 12 full-time-equivalent teacher education fellow positions and three administration positions would go late this year or during next year. Then in 2012 there will be further reductions as specific teaching commitments end, but the university hopes these will occur through attrition.

Staff and the TEU said that the university’s initial restructuring proposal, and a revised proposal released last month after submissions were considered, unfairly targeted teacher educators.

Thanks to Tama Leaver for the photo

The Otago Daily Times reports that the polytechnic will introduce a more stringent selection process where first-year students with strong academic records applying for high-level diploma or degree programmes will be accepted ahead of those who met only minimum requirements.

Chief executive Phil Ker said students with strong academic qualifications enrolling in degree and diploma courses would be accepted first and those with poorer educational records or enrolling in lower-level programmes might miss out.

One councillor Rebecca Parata said the policy would disadvantage the most vulnerable young people at a time when it was difficult for them to find work.

She said 8 percent more Dunedin people aged between 18 and 24 are currently receiving a benefit than the same time last year.

“As a country, we should be using the current economic environment to ensure we up-skill young people, not shut them out of further education … If we don’t get them into work or training they will be on the streets.”

Ms Parata said the policy could also affect mature students, who made up about 40 percent of Otago Polytechnic’s roll.

Another councillor, Dr Peter Coolbear, said the policy countered the reason polytechnics existed – “as engines of regional and economic development”.

A third councillor, Dr Malcolm Macpherson said the policy had been produced with the polytechnic in mind, not society.

Thanks to leighblackall @ Flickr for the photo

According to the Otago Daily Times full-time domestic students could face a 65 percent increase in student services levies and a 3 to 4 percent increase in tuition fees, adding probably $350 to $500 to their annual bill. Tuition fees for new international students attending the polytechnic next year will increase by between 7 and 11 percent, an average of $1300 a year.

Chief executive Phil Ker told the Otago Daily Times he would be preparing a budget over the next two months and no final decisions had been made yet. He said even though he knew increasing fees and levies would be controversial, some level of increase was inevitable. The polytechnic needed to cut .9 million from its budget next year because its base government funding was reducing by that amount.

“We are between a rock and a hard place, as is everyone else in the tertiary sector.”

He told the Otago Daily Times he “did not want to think about” what would happen if the budget reduction target was not met.

TEU organiser Kris Smith said that like all other polytechnics the 2.2 percent CPI funding increase to Otago Polytechnic had received in this year’s budget had effectively been negated by cuts to Business Links and Base Grant funding – both of which made up a core part of the polytechnic’s income.

Thanks to leighblackall @ Flickr for the photo

The polytechnic’s chief executive Phil Ker said 2009 saw sweeping changes from the government, and most of those were bad news.

“Whilst we all understood the context – a government budget in crisis, in a world economy in severe recession – it was nevertheless a bitter blow that an already underfunded sector was to lose even more funding. For Otago Polytechnic the financial challenge placed before us was a staggering $5 million.”

Otago Polytechnic showed improved productivity, with the total cost of each EFTS falling slightly from $14,930 to $14,821.

Mr Ker warned that, like all other polytechnics, there were likely to be more cuts yet to come with the next round of the government’s scheduled funding cuts due to take effect in 2011.

“This will be our biggest challenge yet, given that there is still several million dollars to find from within an institution which has already been pared to the bone.”

Thanks to leighblackall @ Flickr for the photo

He recommended that students and staff be” represented via subcommittees, rather than being included as formal council members.

Mr Ker also proposed that, as CEO, he did not need a formal seat on the council, thus creating space for another appointee.

Meanwhile Otago Polytechnic Students Association president Meegan Cloughley told theOtago Daily Times that she is” no longer fighting for student representation on the council.

Trying to guarantee a seat for a student representative was “a waste of time”, she said. Even if students were allocated a seat, that seat would be guaranteed for only one year.

Instead, the” Otago Daily Times reported, Ms Cloughley and her organisation would be supporting chief executive Phil Ker’s suggestion of representation via a student subcommittee.

The minister for tertiary education, Hon Anne Tolley, announced last week that she was looking for nominees to fill the four ministerially-appointed councillor roles in up to 31 tertiary education institution councils, including universities, wananga and institutes of technology and polytechnics.

The minister’s notice to interested parties noted that she will have a number of council appointments to make throughout 2010, and that she would like to pull together a pool of quality candidates who are interested in being considered for appointment.

Mrs Tolley’s call for nominations, which arrived at the Tertiary Education Union late on Thursday evening last week, closed on Monday this week, giving potential nominees just two working days to submit their expressions of interest. The union is unaware of any earlier public call for nominations, other than the email sent last Thursday.

Sections 171 (4) and 171 (5) of the Education Act suggest that candidates should reflect the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of the communities they serve, and that half should be male and half female.” There should also be a sufficient number of members with expertise in management, experience of governance, and specialist skills.

The minister’s statement says that ideal candidates will have” a portfolio of public, private, or not-for-profit sector board appointments; and/or a career history that includes executive level leadership of private or public sector organisations; and/or expertise in a relevant professional area such as education, finance, law or social policy.

TEU president Dr Tom Ryan says that these appointments could have particular significance for the ITP sector, as a new and less democratic council structure is likely to be introduced there early next year.

“Those ministerial appointees to ITP councils will effectively have a voting majority from next year, so people the minister picks will from now on be playing an important role in the direction of education for our polytechnics and institutes of technology.”

“It’s unfortunate we have been unable to forward any nominations for these positions. Two days is an impossibly brief time to try to complete such a process.”

Also in” Tertiary Update this week:

1. Bargaining concludes at Auckland, Waikato, Otago and Vic
2. Minister replaces training allowance with smaller loan
3. Keep education out of WTO agreements
4. ‘What? There is no University of Newlands?’
5. Govt readies NZ for spending cuts
6. 60-year-olds rack up student loan debt

TEU” Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to” Tertiary Update by” email or” feed reader. Back issues are available on the” TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day, email:” http://scr.im/stephenday

“It’s like an early Christmas present,” Chief Executive Phil Kerr said.

WINTEC and Eastern Institute of Technology also picked up $1.2 million each in discretionary funding, from the $8 million of discretionary funding allocated to the polytechnics by the Tertiary Education Commission

Tertiary education minister Anne Tolley announced the funding again this week, saying the allocations of money was based on polytechnics’ performance in delivering education and training to students under 25, and students at higher levels of training.

“This represents an important step in delivering this Government’s election commitment to introduce a performance-linked funding system,” said Mrs Tolley.

TEU National Secretary Sharn Riggs says it is interesting to note that Otago Polytechnic was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the discretionary funding, despite being widely perceived in the sector as one of the institutions to have stood up to the State Services Commission and the government’s expectations around employment relations and pay increases.

“It’s also relevant that five of the six polytechnics currently engaged in a dispute with their staff picked up money from the discretionary fund. That suggests that TEC thinks that their current operational model is working well, and that there is no need for the new one they currently are trying to impose on staff.”  It also means that collectively they have now got an extra $3 million to spend next year.”