Editorial: Industry needs to match unis in growth stakes
5:30 AM Saturday Sep 15, 2012
The University of Auckland plans to buy the ex-Lion Brewery site in Newmarket, Auckland. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey
Universities have been the most visible growth industry in central Auckland for many years. With the country's largest university occupying most of the Symonds St ridge, the nearby AUT expanding into six blocks of inner city offices and even Otago University setting up a colony in Queen St, their combined student population often gives the CBD the character of a giant campus.
The giant is about to get bigger with Auckland University poised to take up the former Lion Breweries site in Newmarket. It will replace all or most of the campus at Glen Innes and Epsom's crowded teachers college, but the site will also accommodate the university's projected growth.
It means the brewery site will be put to better use than the cheapjack apartments that might have sprouted there as in other parts of Newmarket and the inner city. And the university's move from Epsom and Glen Innes will release land for the Auckland Council's desired intensive residential development near railway stations. From Symonds St to the medical school at Grafton, and now along Khyber Pass almost to Broadway, the university's reach seems almost imperial.
It is said that the only other visible growth industry these days is retirement villages. The preparation for working life and its aftermath are well accommodated. We could do with more industry in between.
Societies which invested in universal education during the recent era found the investment paid off.
Yet is this yesterday's formula?
Today's society has reached some type of environmental growth limit. At the same time, the technology developed by the recent era is making low productivity human labor redundant.
The education sector, to their credit, is still according a good general & specialist education. The social contract has not failed at the education end, so it's no good blaming teachers. It is failing at the societies end, which is unable to provide paying positions & job security for those who have acquired education.
That raises the question is the universal education system still valid? Or is it yesterdays system, one as out-dated as continuing to invest is horse shoes long after the invention of the motor vehicle. Is universal education now a bad investment, an under-performing dog & a fiscal drag on the society that provides it?
Some would argue it is not all about the economy, but even the quality of education is a bit dubious! The University of Auckland is now much larger than most institutes overseas, yet its global ranking has declined. The focus seems on increasing numbers, rather than quality.
Could this be part of the problem? Students expect someone to give them a job when thousands of them have the same BA or BCom qualification for example. Maybe some of them should be trained to create a job!