from PENNY BRIGHT

Should we allow the Business Roundtable to set the agenda for tertiary education? The government is implementing Business Roundtable policies which will radically change tertiary education.

Among these proposals are:

• Shifting the cost of education from the government and onto students and their families
• Public money to be used for private profit - Less opportunity for students from poor families to access quality education
• The quality of education to fall to match the reduction in government funding and the "let the market set the standards" approach
• Further time and money wasted through the competitive model
• Commercialisation and privatisation of tertiary education

* * *

An information meeting to discuss these issues has been organised for everyone involved in tertiary education and future tertiary students. Academic staff and students from the tertiary sector will address the meeting and will analyse the current policies.

This historic meeting will discuss and promote alternatives to what is essentially the Business Roundtable model for tertiary education which the government is following.

If you believe in quality public education, then put this date in your diary. See you there!

Music Auditorium, Auckland College of Education 60 Epsom Avenue, Thursday 10 December 1998, 7.30pm Chairperson Sir Paul Reeves

Who elected the Business Roundtable to make education policy? What is the use of academic freedom if we don't all speak out? "When injustice becomes policy, resistance becomes duty!"

Organised by Auckland QPEC (Quality Public Education Coalition),
Box 56482, Dominion Road, Auckland

The Minister of Education, Wyatt Creech, was right when he said on Morning Report last week (Thursday, November 19), that the response to the Government's Tertiary Education White Paper had been captured by those with special interests.

The university vice chancellors have managed to cast the debate as one that pits universities against polytechs. This is not the case. The debate is about public education versus publicly funded private education.

The questions raised by the White paper should not be seen in isolation from other sectors. This radical shift in thinking about tertiary education mimics changes in other areas and should be seen for what it is -- part of a neo-liberal agenda to transform the role of the State.

The legislation included in the Government's White Paper gets rid of bulk funding and replaces it with what is, for all intents and purposes, a voucher system that funds private training institutions on an equal footing with public tertiary institutions.

What has become clear is that the setting up of bulk-funded institutions as separate entities with councils that have the power to set their own student fees, determine staff salaries, borrow money and dispose of assets was only the first step.

Contained in the legislation that accompanies the White Paper is the transfer of Crown assets to those institutions and the ability to determine their own "organisational form". If it wants to, a university or other tertiary institute can form itself into a trust, as Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable suggested recently.

In fact, a comparison of the White Paper and Roger Kerr's "From Welfare State to Civil Society" reveals some interesting parallels. In his paper, Kerr suggests "a variety of institutional forms may be appropriate, ranging from for-profit companies--which might be well suited to some vocationally and professionally-oriented institutions -- to charitable trusts."

He goes on to say: The best approach to divestment of each institution should be decided on a case-by-case basis."

At a briefing for unions last Wednesday, I asked Ministry officials if it would be possible for a polytech or university to float shares on the stockmarket and the answer was "Yes, if the Minister agrees."

What is contained in the White Paper is a system whereby the funding of all tertiary institutions, private and public, is based on subsidies that students bring with them on enrolment. These are called UTTAs (Universal Tertiary Tuition Allowances), which gives the impression that they are the universal student allowance that students have been asking for. In fact, the money goes to the institution, not the student, and because it applies equally to private training institutes, this will mean that traditional universities will have to compete in the marketplace by offering courses that are "sexy".

Furthermore, the "variable tuition subsidy" contained in the White Paper disadvantages traditional universities, which are "capital rich" in relation to newer institutions, such as wananga.

I asked the Ministry officials whether the variable subsidy would be applied to private institutions as well and got conflicting responses. In a later meeting with the Ministry, I again asked for clarification on the question. Although the White Paper spells out that the variable subsidy applies to TEIs (the new name for universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and wananga), one of the officials said "that hasn't been decided yet". Perhaps we can draw from this that the variable subsidy (in effect, a form of capital charging) applies to public institutions -- for now. Logically, though, if private training enterprises are to be funded from the public purse, it will apply to them and they will be advantaged under such a system, relative to the public sector.

When we followed up this discussion with a question to clarify the difference between public and private institutions, the officials said that PTEs had "no residual risk to the Crown". In other words, in their thinking, the only difference is that if a private institution falls over, the taxpayer will not have to bail them out. They added that public institutions are carried on the Crown balance sheet and will be subject to Schedule 6 of the Public Finance Act, which sets down reporting requirements.

In line with this, the White Paper sets up small, appointed councils with the same duties as boards of directors. They will be chosen for their skills and expertise -- skills in business, finance, strategic planning, education and research.

Presumably because of the last two, there will be a requirement that councils include at least one academic staff member and a student, but the council is to determine, through its charter and in consultation with the minister, how those people will be appointed.

The staff member and student on Council are to be forbidden, under legislation, from acting as representatives of the student body or staff. They are specifically required, under the proposed legislation, to represent the "best interests of the institution." However, it would not be surprising to note that the "best interests" of institutions run as business entities do not always coincide with the interests of students and staff. For example, it is obviously in the best interests of students to have low fees, but in the interests of institutions to maximise profits.

For the same reason, it is in the interests of institutions to have a higher student-to-staff ratio because that would be more "efficient". But from a staff point of view, this is likely to lead to higher workloads and redundancies. Both students and staff could rightly claim that this impacts on the quality of education provided.

The White Paper sets up a quality assurance agency whose job it is to validate the validaters. In other words, there will be a big daddy ERO in charge of a whole range of little baby EROs that will decide whether courses (in both the public and the private sector) are quality assured. If they do not pass the test, no student subsidies will be forthcoming. But the fact that different types of institutions will be subject to different quality validaters, lends little confidence that the same standards will apply.

As for research, it is to be funded by a combination of a top-up to EFTS (actually now UTTAs) and a contestable fund, the idea being that the top-ups will be phased out in favour of the contestable fund.

To access the contestable fund, researchers will have to demonstrate an established track record, put up a proposal that meets normal criteria and is cost-effective. As well, and this is the catch, the research must meet the "strategic focus" of the Government. To quote the White Paper: "Researchers will need to demonstrate how their portfolios will develop the innovation and human resource capabilities of New Zealand."

This fits with French academic Jean Francois Lyotard's contention that knowledge and research are increasingly being treated as commodities to be bought and sold. he suggests that only research results that can be quantified and compartmentalised will be viable in the future.

When he was in New Zealand recently, Noam Chomsky had something to say about this. The Herald last week quoted him as saying it had been easier to do research that critiqued the establishment when the military was funding research at MIT (the one in Massachusetts, not at Manukau) than the corporations.

So what does the White Paper have to say about who will make the decisions about allocating the fund? While this job will be overseen by the Ministry, which will have a "policy direction" role, the job of allocating the fund's money is to be contracted out to a private agency specialising in managing contestable funds. That gives me little confidence that universities will continue to play a role as "critic and conscience of society".

The White Paper was 18 months in the making and yet the Ministry briefing revealed many unanswered questions. The stock answer of Ministry officials was: "There is work to be done on that."

As the union that covers polytechnic and colleges of education staff, ASTE is concerned that the very real problems facing trades and vocational education were not addressed in the Government's review of tertiary education.

The recent debacle over motor industry training demonstrates the crisis in trades education. Hundreds of automotive students at Auckland's Manukau Institute of Technology were told their courses would not be offered. They were told not to worry. They could complete their qualifications by following manuals provided by the Industry Training Organisation. They were told to collect the evidence that they met the criteria required to demonstrate competency and be sure to have it available when the workplace assessor came round.

The MIT courses and others like it are falling over because of inadequate and unreliable funding mechanisms, that are nothing more than an attempt to shift funding from the public purse on to students and their employers.

The White Paper has no suggestions to address the problem. In fact, when we asked why not, the response from Ministry officials was that there was not too much wrong with the system, but that it would be "on the timetable" for next year.

Again, the White Paper does nothing to improve teacher education. That, too, we were told is "in the timetable" for next year.

Meantime, the legislation contained in the White Paper is to be introduced in February. It will go through. Already ACT has said the White Paper looks great although it does not go far enough because it does not allow New Zealand students to spend their subsidies overseas.

Clearly what is needed is a Government that views education as a public good, not as a private business.