The report, written by Dr James Kierstead, highlights several pressing issues threatening the sustainability and quality of tertiary education in New Zealand:
- Severe funding pressures, with universities collectively forecasting a deficit for the first time in 2024
- Declining international rankings of New Zealand universities over the past decade
- Growing bureaucratisation diverting resources away from core teaching and research functions
- Concerns about threats to academic freedom and viewpoint diversity on campuses
- Underinvestment in research and development compared to other OECD countries
"The challenges our universities face are complex and deeply entrenched,” said Dr Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative. “Overcoming them will require boldness, creativity and above all, an unwavering commitment to a free and open contest of ideas."
The report serves as a wake-up call to raise awareness of these critical issues facing New Zealand universities and the need for new ideas and approaches to address these complex challenges.
The report serves as a wake-up call to raise awareness of these critical issues facing New Zealand universities and the need for new ideas and approaches to address these complex challenges.
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Dr James Kierstead is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Victoria University of Wellington.This article was first published HERE
3 comments:
A repeat of the MSM problem.
Once great academic institutions have become indoctrination machines - due to Critical Race Theory and manipulation by Te Tiriti activists.
This reality must be faced.
If the Coalition takes no action to rectify this, it does so at its peril.
Funding should be cut immediately if reform is not undertaken.
NZ will no longer be able to compete in the global Knowledge Society.
Universities will be reduced to mechanisms to disseminate Maori culture and language - which could be done in other ways.
I would like to add to that list the appointment and promotion of people in academic positions on the basis of extraneous attributes viz sex and race and the return to meritocratic practices. This would go a long way to returning standards to what they were when I was an undergraduate at Auckland Uni and several of the people who taught me had international reputations in their fields of expertise.
in hindsight, installing a non-academic as vc of otago may turn out be a wonderful experiment :)
removing 1st year fees-free is a great step. currently, unis make the first year look like a birthday party - students don't care as they don't pay anything. non one bothers the question the relevance of spending money learning a 'special' language and culture that contributes nothing to academic outcomes and can be done for free anyway.
we need some radical plans where unis can offer degrees in exchange for x% of student income above a threshold of y$ for z months. perhaps this can be done via an anonymous exchange platform where student identity is obscured to avoid getting blamed for racism. this might knock some sense into unis offering degrees in irrelevant topics that only massage the ego of academics and contributes nothing to society at large.
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