‘Funding to blame’ for education standards

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 7

‘Funding to blame’ for education standards

New Zealand’s educational standards are slipping and poor education funding is to blame, says the principal of Lincoln College, Professor Bruce Ross. Professor Ross attacked criticism of universities “from people in high places” which claimed that universities were re-. ceiving more than thenfair share of the education vote. He also criticised the

news media for giving “one-sided publicity” to the claims that universities were ivory towers remote from the world and unresponsive to society’s needs. Professor Ross was addressing the college’s graduation ceremony. “Universities are not over-endowed at the moment. Universities’ share of education spending has been declining at a time when student numbers have been growing more rapidly. “The result has been a considerable decline in the resources available per university student,” he said. At Lincoln College staffstudent ratios had declined 34 per cent. He also showed that universities compared unfavourably with teachers’ colleges and technical institutes. In fact, universities were 80 per cent worse off than teachers’ colleges and 34 per cent worse off than technical institutes based on staff-student ratios, he said.

New Zealand did not shape up well in comparison with Australian and British universities, Professor Ross said. The level of funding for academic staff was on the basis of 74 staff members per 1000 students in New Zealand compared with 83 and 100 in Australia and Britain respectively. The situation with regard to support staff was notoriously bad. On the responsiveness of universities to society’s needs, Professor Ross said that those who had investigated the changes in recent years had been impressed by the way New Zealand universities had reacted to the changing needs of society. “At Lincoln College last year more than 20 per cent of students were doing courses which did not exist in 1976,” he said. Professor Ross said that the proportion of young people in their late teens still being eduated was lower in New Zealand than in almost any other

O.E.C.D. country. Very little research had been done in New Zealand on why people did not continue their education or what would be required to persuade more people to take their education to higher levels. “It seems to me to be highly irresponsible to be suggesting that the financial assistance provided to students who proceed to higher education should be cut before the implications of such a move have been fully investigated. It was “totally irresponsible” to talk of cutting financial support before workable schemes had been devised for targeting assistance to those who could benefit from it and would use it. “With participation rates of our young people in higher education so far behind those of our trading partners, we cannot risk moves which could see even more young people drop out of the system,” said Professor Ross.