Proposed job cuts threat to teacher training

Staff and students at Victoria University's College of Education are staging a protest tomorrow against proposed cuts they say pose a serious threat to the future quality of teacher education in Wellington.

The Association of University Staff (AUS) says the university is planning to cut over 15 per cent of staff (22 of 141 academic and advisory jobs and seven of 41 administration staff jobs).

"You cannot lose 15 per cent of teaching staff and offer the same quality of teacher education," AUS branch organiser Michael Gilchrist said today.

The college is one of the leading teacher training establishments in the country.

Mr Gilchrist said the proposed cuts were based solely on an arbitrary figure for budget overspending.

"The university does not have any plans for maintaining the quality of the college's core function, teacher education, while making such severe cuts."

Mr Gilchrist said that the university planned to embark on a crude shift in emphasis from teacher education to research in education rather than developing a progressive reshaping of the college.

"The criterion for cutting academic and advisory jobs will be the research capability of the people in those jobs, not the functional capability of the college itself."

Mr Gilchrist said the Government must take part of the responsibility for this situation.

"It has markedly reduced funding levels for taught postgraduate degrees when such degrees are overwhelmingly preferred by teachers wanting to upgrade their qualifications.

"And it has done nothing to recognise the funding needs of colleges of education within universities.

"The resulting rush by the university to secure funds set aside for research threatens to leave teacher education in the dust."

The protest will be held outside the college's main entrance in Karori at 12.30pm tomorrow.

(Seeking reaction from Victoria University)

- NZPA