University governance changes a power play

Stripping away democratic governance is not the answer to ensuring New Zealand’s universities remain internationally competitive and flies in the face of best practice, says Labour’s Associate Tertiary Education spokesperson Megan Woods.

“Steven Joyce wants to remove specific representation requirements and to reduce the size of university councils to allow his appointees to hold the balance of power.

“It makes no sense and Mr Joyce knows it. A 2012 Ministry of Education report prepared for him noted that, internationally, even those universities taking a skills-based approach to governance maintained stakeholder representation in their governing bodies.

“This proposal will take our universities further away from their role as critic and conscience of society, and dilute the very principles we should be upholding.

“Our universities are well governed already. We know that democratic, local, and independent governing bodies generally make better decisions, are more inclusive and more economic than the alternative of ‘appointed boards’.

“Mr Joyce needs to front with evidence that these changes are anything more than an ideologically driven attempt to seize more control.

“It’s true that New Zealand is facing a critical challenge due to massive investment in the university sector across the developing world. But the Minister is  choosing to ignore the fact that to meet that challenge we need further investment in tertiary education, not radical restructuring to align our universities with his corporate view of the world, allowing him to interfere with academic freedom, democracy and independence.”

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