The Government has agreed to build a new medical school, costing more than $230 million, at the University of Waikato.
The New Zealand Graduate School of Medicine will offer a four-year graduate programme for students who have completed a three-year undergraduate degree. …
“With $82.85 million in Government funding and over $150 million from the University, supported by philanthropic investment, this is a substantial commitment to education and regional development in the Waikato.
I’m pleased the taxpayer contribution has been scaled back to around $80 million.
The main driver of this has been Waikato University, who have been pushing this since 2016. The main reason, in my opinion, is prestige.
For quite a long period of time, Waikato University was not seen in the same league as the older universities. Otago, Auckland, Canterbury and VUW were all established in the 1800s. Massey followed in 1927 and then Waikato in 1964.
The law school especially was not seen as particularly good. I knew quite a few lawyers who said they would never hire a Waikato Law School graduate as it was seen as more political than legal. Today that is not the case, and instead I suspect AUT Law School is the one that struggles to find jobs for graduates.
Today Massey is held in higher esteem (partly thanks to their VC, who I do rate highly (NB: He was my monetary economics lecturer at VUW, but I doubt he even remembers me). They are ranked not so bad in global rankings, but still a bit below the five older universities. A medical school would add considerably to their prestige. They are sort of the crown jewels of the university system.
So from Waikato’s point of view, they really want a medical school.
So is it a good idea from a health system point of view? Well I’m not an expert, but my initial position tends to be more choice and competition is good. A third medical school is better than a duopoly. Also Waikato has proposed a far stronger focus on rural health, which is badly needed. Their structure of a four year post graduate degree is different to the current double bachelors MBChB.
Just increasing places in the two current medical schools is certainly an option, and one that is probably cheaper. However considering the massive barriers they place in front of aspiring medical students who don’t fit into one of their quotas (they need a 95% grade average vs 70% for those who are a preferential demographic), I’m not convinced one should put all your eggs in that basket.
The Government has funded increased places at Otago and Auckland, and a new medical school at Waikato. Considering they have significantly reduced the taxpayer contribution from $280 million to $80 million, it looks like a good outcome. As I said, choice and competition is a good thing.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
4 comments:
If the government wants more quality doctors to graduate, isn't the answer to require the existing medical schools to teach on the basis of merit instead of accepting students on the basis of race? Under the existing system, most medical students are under performing DEI, while the non- DEI students are elite book worms with no social skills.
The reason Waikato Law School is useless is because it puts politics ahead of the skills employers want. That just follows the University's policies. If the Medical School operates under the same policies it is going to be just as useless. Graduates will have a great knowledge of Maori traditional healing but very little ability with so called "Western medicine".
Farrar gets his economics wrong, as usual. How can he be pleased "the taxpayer contribution" has been reduced to "$80 million". Who is making up the rest? Waikato University, of course. And where does all of its money come from? The taxpayer, of course, being a public university. Farrar got suckered by Seymour's comms. As for private philanthropists paying for it, dream on. That was comms as well. A country run by comms is not a country running at all.
The need for a non-med degree as an entry qualification to med school is the US system, and I need a lot of convincing it is better than the 6-year undergrad MBChB programme we have now. One of the intentions of the new programme is to produce more GPs, which suggests that standards may be lower than for the current MBChB from which 5 in 6 graduates go on to specialist training.
I'll be watching this one warily.
The need for a very high (95%) grade average presupposes comparability of outcomes between disciplines - a big ask without imposing some sort of mark standarisation. It is disconcerting to see that lowered to 70% for favoured races.
Can somebody explain to me why V-C Quigley is also RB Chair? Maybe he us on 0.8 FTE as Waikato V-C. Not really sure, either, about Quigley's great international standing. Evidence?
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