Unitec DVA Students against staff redundancies

It is really disappointing to see a key Auckland public educational institution acting in this bizarre and cavalier fashion!

Rescind the decison

Please act wisely, with the real priorities New Zealand's future should have.

Current students entered the programme in good faith, on the understanding that they would be supported by the current staff. They have a right to complete their qualification in the programme as it was advertised. Future students would have a diminished experience if so many positions are eliminated. Furthermore, replacing academic staff with managers, who are focused more on addressing the needs of industry than on the needs of students, is a retrograde step. This is not an example worth following; rather, it is an example of what not to do in a publicly funded institution that is responsible to society at large, including (but not firstly and centrally) the business sector.

Creative arts courses and the poetic ethos is under threat from book keepers and bean counters. As David Hockney related: many bank managers and accountants confess on their death beds that they would rather have been poets, but you never get the opposite happening.

As the founding ex head of the art school at Manukau institute of Technology I find this to be appauling.One only has to see how the Mit programme was decimated to see the probable outcome of this move. I am frequently consulted by potential art and design students as to where they should enrole. I can no longer recommend MIT (the school I founded) and will no longer recommend Unitec if this proposal eventuates.

Save the jobs of thses valued practitioners

Stop the redundancies of so many teachers and technicians in the Design and Visual Arts Department!

Quality education - what a joke.

The increased casualisation of tertiary education in NZ is compromising the quality of education. In order to maintain our institutions reputations as quality teritary providers we need to ensure academic staff are appropriately qualified and treat them well.

Institutions seem to be pushing for teaching staff that are trained in education - then don't see the value in retaining those skills!

yet another step towards casualisation of acdemic staff.

You need trained teachers to teach effectively. The way current staff are being treated is unethical and unacceptable form an institution claiming to serve the interests of the comunity and endorses the tenets of corporate social responsibility. this is the commercialisation of education at its worst. yt

How can 3 people do the work of 50. How will they be able to mark the work that is produced by this many students and still be able to give them the time that is needed to make sure that they students learn what they need to!

Student staff ratio goes from 11 to 33 - using (Steven) Joyceian maths anyone can see the sense in this proposal - not!

Here here to Lucy-Jane Walsh. The current environment seems to belittle education in the area of arts and creativity and put the emphasis on science, technology and jobs. Where is the balance? What is being valued and what is being lost?

The best results for students come from being able to work with qualified passionate teachers. All students deserve this. If you want the students to be representative of a high qulity learning facility such as Unitec, then they deserve experienced, trained teachers. Don't let them down!

Appalling.

Cutting teachers will not cut costs, it will simply lower the quality of the education provided by Unitec. In the long term, this will devalue the qualification and the student numbers will plummet. It is an insensible decision and it will be costly not only to the students but also the institution in the long term.

I just cannot see how cutting all this knowledge and experience could be a positive thing. Very sad.