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Monday, July 1, 2024

Professor Robert MacCulloch: If NZ Universities create fake news in their quest for dollars...


If NZ Universities create fake news in their quest for dollars, then our society really is in trouble.

The word University has in it the Latin word, "veritas", meaning the truth. In an age of bias and fake news promulgated by the Main Stream Media and Social Media, one would hope that universities would stay true to their central mission of providing objectivity.

On that note, hot on the heels of Otago University telling our local and prospective international students that it is one of the top "1% universities in the world" according to QS Rankings, when it is not, now we have the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) doing the same. AUT state the Times Higher Education has ranked them in the "top 1% of universities in the world .. and first in NZ for international outlook". Where does the truth lie? The Times Higher Education World Rankings 2024 include 1,906 universities across 108 nations. Where is AUT? Bogged down in an uninspiring interval somewhere between 401st and 500th out of those 1,906 institutions. It is not in the top 1%, nor the top 10%, not even the top 20%:



It's a sad day when two of NZ's biggest universities (we only have eight, so that's a quarter of them) that are entrusted with the aim of a search for the truth cannot be relied upon to do so, claiming they are world top 1% institutions, when they certainly are not.


Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is up there with our revisionist activists claiming that Maori did not cede sovereignty in spite of the available evidence. Oh wait, many of them reside in the same halls of veritas ...

Anonymous said...

In my opinion the no doubt well meaning comments such as above, expressing righteousness and truth, are out of sync with modern NZ.

NZ now determines its values and identity on its own subjective criteria not necessarily aligned with 'facts' or 'truths' as might have traditionally been defined.

This redefinition is now well and truly embedded, with the old institutions such as parliament and the judiciary replaced by the waitangi tribunal and the media.

This new identity is embedded in the education system, the civil service and even the language now identified as being representative of NZ.

It has settled already through several generations of NZ from the young through the older desperate to remain relevant populace not to mention the complacent.

Nz has changed and discarded its former self as colonial upheld by the pale male and stale.

To use an English figure of speech - it is too late to shut the gate after the horse has bolted.

In NZ perhaps one might say - you are dead once the waka of war has paddled offshore.

CXH said...

The point is that AUT thinks it is in the top 1%, therefore it is. To say otherwise is racist, fascist and hurtful to the staff.

Chris said...

Do we really need 8 universities for 5 million people? Maybe it is time for a cull out!

Anonymous said...

To Anon at 3.06

Much truth in what you say - but NZ will become an insular and Third World backwater very fast. Examples of this status abound in the world.


To CXH
Exactly.. and this delusionist attitude of entitled ethnic superiority will be any NZ university's undoing in a real and competitive world. Staying in its bubble of self -congratulation is the death knell.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 3.06 PM
There was nothing well meaning about the first comment, simply a statement of truth. Truth in NZ long since left the building along with the horse, since the lunatics took over the asylum and they have been running amok for way too long. Our feeble, inadequate political classes have failed to intervene.
One salient point about veritas ... and the truth shall set you free but ... at first the truth shall p*** you off.
NZ is already beyond the point of no return, so it would take a miracle to reverse the damage inculcated and indoctrinated into the minds of the young. What made it worse is that there are so many older ones who should've known better. It is they who have sold NZ's future down the river.
Kind regards Anon 10.20 AM

Anonymous said...

From Anon 306: NZ may or may not become an insular backwater or superpower puppet. However that is irrelevant to the current NZ identity which is an end unto itself. Anything else is deemed colonial.

To those embedded in the former ways this seems absurd to the point of self destructive. However to those who have 'moved with the times' and subscribe to the current NZ ethic - self actualisation on post colonial tribal principles coupled with woke diversity subject to tribal mandate - this is all that counts.

Sad but true. As previously said- not with a bang but a whimper.

POP!

Anonymous said...

‘University’ has no etymological relationship at all to the Latin word ‘veritas’. I’m unsure whether RM is being intentionally ironic or has simply got this fact wrong.

LFC