Curb on business courses urged

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32838, 11 February 1972, Page 3

Curb on business courses urged

(New Zealand Press Association) PALMERSTON NORTH, February 10. New Zealand has too many universities which are turning out too many graduates with no concern whatsoever for the market requirements of the community the universities are supposed to serve, according to Mr R. E. Glensor, executive director of the Institute of Management.

Mr Glensor, speaking at the conference of the institute, said there was concern in New Zealand about the proliferation of management courses. As technical institutes grew in size and strength and as the universities developed

y departments of management p i or business administration ! .and departments of extension 8 j studies, the proliferation Icould be expected to in- , crease, he said. There seemed to be an urgent need for considering some method of rationalisajtion or co-ordination between d°ithe agencies. Mr Glensor said he viewed with concern the scramble at i university level for pieces of [ the management education I cake. There was a limit to the 1 number of management i graduates New Zealand I could absorb. As a small r country it had relatively few ; areas which could provide ;■ support for tuition in specialist management functions. 1 'I No easy solution was j ’ available if a community j r could not provide the facili- ' ’ ties for field experience for ! ■ I students. This problem was I ■ causing concern in Dunedin 1 where clinical teaching re-1 'quirements of the medical r school had outstripped the 1 _ capacity of the community. [

Auckland was the only 'area in New Zealand with enough depth of experience to provide the right climate for the teaching of marketing. This, of course, is the concern of the University Grants Committee, which is not exercising sufficient control,” said Mr Glensor. Asian quoted

Recently, an Asian membei of an international working party had made it obvious that the problem of too many graduates for tne community’s requirements was universal.

The feeling of the group was that there was a tendency for universities to regard their education programmes as leading to a firstline degree in preparation foi a second-line master’s degree leading to a third line doctorate and ultimately into pure research. The Chinese delegate said that this thinking led ultimately to the regarding of anyone who departed from I the programme as a “dropout.” There was a need for the management philosopher and the management researcher, said Mr Glensor. But there was an even greater need for men of real ability, adequately trained to use their talents in the effective management of the community’s resources.