http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25101161-12332,00.html
Andrew Trounson February 24, 2009
VICTORIA University is facing a campaign of rolling strikes after academics voted in favour of an indefinite industrial campaign against the university's redundancy plans.
Members of the National Tertiary Education Union will from next week strike for two days a week at different campuses.
With students already back on campus some classes may be disrupted. The NTEU said it would aim to minimise disruption for student by staggering stoppages.
The union says it is taking protected action to seek job security provisions under a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
"We want the university to back off on its current redundancy plans and deal with this more through negotiation," NTEU Victorian secretary Matthew McGowan told The Australian Online.
VU deputy vice-chancellor Jon Hickman said the strike action was disappointing given the university believed most items on the EBA had been agreed.
"The main points of difference with the NTEU remain with their demand that the new agreement include a clause committing the university to no forced redundancies during the life of the agreement," Mr Hickman said.
"Given the university's commitment to financial sustainability, it would be irresponsible for us to commit unequivocally to a no-forced-redundancies provision without potentially impacting negatively on the university financial status and staff's long-term job security," he said.
VU vice chancellor Elizabeth Harman is seeking $27 million in annual cost savings that she says are need to make the university sustainable in an environment of rising costs outstripping revenue increases.
After last year initially flagging compulsory redundancies and up to 270 job losses, the VU has so far limited job losses to a voluntary programme from which it has secured $7 million worth of savings.
But further job cuts remain on the agenda. Earlier this month Professor Harman warned staff that while VU's staff-student ratios were close to national averages, it was paying more staff at senior lecturer level and above than other universities.
"Therefore we will have to be careful in making decisions on staff changes and redundancies in order to solve the financial problem," Professor Harman said.
But the NTEU says redundancies are unnecessary given a surplus last year of $17 million. It also notes that the university is set to get an extra $10 million to $20 million in funding from 2010 if the federal government implements the Bradley Review of higher education that seeks to encourage universities like VU in Melbourne's lower income western suburbs to expand. But Harman said the extra money would not change the need to cut staff costs.
"We must act now to change this so that we are able to use any new money to help more low SES (social economic status) students to succeed at university," she said.
Showing posts with label The Australian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Australian. Show all posts
26 February 2009
12 December 2008
Universities to merge in major overhaul as Bradley review recommends vouchers
Luke Slattery and Andrew Trounson December 12, 2008
Article from: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24788101-12332,00.html
UNIVERSITIES will be merged, a national voucher system introduced and incentives given to enrol students from low socio-economic backgrounds under recommendations being considered by the Rudd Government.
The reforms, which are understood to be contained in a 200-page report to Education Minister Julia Gillard by former University of South Australia vice-chancellor Denise Bradley, would consolidate the prestige metropolitan universities while leaving the future of several outer suburban, regional and remote campuses in doubt.
In anticipation of Bradley's recommendations, two NSW institutions, Charles Sturt University and Southern Cross University, yesterday announced they would merge to form a new national university based in regional Australia.
The two regional universities said they would be the foundation partners in a new national venture triggered by consultations for the Bradley review.
In a prepared release, the two said: "With an expanded course profile and increased investment in digital technology, the new university would improve the accessibility of professional education in its regions and nationally. Consolidation of its research programs will bring increased innovation of particular relevance to regional Australia."
The Bradley review, commissioned in March, is understood to recommend new measures to integrate the vocational training and higher education sectors in order to boost participation among lower socio-economic groups.
Vouchers - or student learning entitlements - represent a radical shift to a student-centred funding system that no government of either political persuasion has been ready to accept. Students could take vouchers to any university that would admit them.
A voucher scheme would introduce flexibility and a potentially better match of courses to students' first choices, but it would also draw students away from less popular universities.
A student-centred approach could also potentially allow more widespread provision of public funding to recognise private providers, as occurs in the vocational education and training and schools sectors.
However, it is understood that the voucher scheme recommended by the Bradley review would not extend to price deregulation.
The reforms are understood to include measures to protect the $13 billion export education program - Australia's third-biggest earner after iron ore and coal and potentially its biggest if the resources boom goes bust.
A new national accreditation agency is also believed to be among Bradley's recommendations. It would challenge some universities to prove they were worthy of the name.
Education Minister Julia Gillard yesterday would not be drawn on the implications of the budgetary stresses on the Government's response to the Bradley review, which she said would be made in February.
"Everybody is aware that these are difficult days as a result of the global financial crisis," Ms Gillard told reporters.
But she said fast-tracked infrastructure funding for the sector was on its way as part of the Government's overall infrastructure spending plans.
"The Government is intending to fast-track an infrastructure announcement - the Prime Minister has made that clear - and that infrastructure announcement will include infrastructure in higher education."
The sector is awaiting the results of the first $304 million funding round from the newly created $8.7 billion Education Investment Fund.
Victoria has been pushing for a more student-driven demand model for universities, in line with its controversial TAFE reforms under which both public TAFEs and private providers are eligible for public funding.
Southern Cross University vice-chancellor Paul Clark told The Australian yesterday that his merger with Charles Sturt was aimed at boosting flagging higher education enrolments in regional Australia, and Professor Bradley was "personally quite supportive of the way in which we want to go".
Professor Clark said Ms Gillard had already asked the pair to submit a commonwealth grant application for a feasibility study to advance the initiative to the next stage.
"They have dentistry and pharmacy and veterinary science; we have law and forestry so there's complementarities," he said.
Professor Clark "pretty much" ruled out forced redundancies as a result of the merger, saying the plan was about growth.
In a separate development, the Government yesterday released $111.5 million to fund specific programs at universities under the annual disbursement of the Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund. About $206 million has now been disbursed from the fund, reducing it to about $75million.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24788101-12332,00.html
Article from: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24788101-12332,00.html
UNIVERSITIES will be merged, a national voucher system introduced and incentives given to enrol students from low socio-economic backgrounds under recommendations being considered by the Rudd Government.
The reforms, which are understood to be contained in a 200-page report to Education Minister Julia Gillard by former University of South Australia vice-chancellor Denise Bradley, would consolidate the prestige metropolitan universities while leaving the future of several outer suburban, regional and remote campuses in doubt.
In anticipation of Bradley's recommendations, two NSW institutions, Charles Sturt University and Southern Cross University, yesterday announced they would merge to form a new national university based in regional Australia.
The two regional universities said they would be the foundation partners in a new national venture triggered by consultations for the Bradley review.
In a prepared release, the two said: "With an expanded course profile and increased investment in digital technology, the new university would improve the accessibility of professional education in its regions and nationally. Consolidation of its research programs will bring increased innovation of particular relevance to regional Australia."
The Bradley review, commissioned in March, is understood to recommend new measures to integrate the vocational training and higher education sectors in order to boost participation among lower socio-economic groups.
Vouchers - or student learning entitlements - represent a radical shift to a student-centred funding system that no government of either political persuasion has been ready to accept. Students could take vouchers to any university that would admit them.
A voucher scheme would introduce flexibility and a potentially better match of courses to students' first choices, but it would also draw students away from less popular universities.
A student-centred approach could also potentially allow more widespread provision of public funding to recognise private providers, as occurs in the vocational education and training and schools sectors.
However, it is understood that the voucher scheme recommended by the Bradley review would not extend to price deregulation.
The reforms are understood to include measures to protect the $13 billion export education program - Australia's third-biggest earner after iron ore and coal and potentially its biggest if the resources boom goes bust.
A new national accreditation agency is also believed to be among Bradley's recommendations. It would challenge some universities to prove they were worthy of the name.
Education Minister Julia Gillard yesterday would not be drawn on the implications of the budgetary stresses on the Government's response to the Bradley review, which she said would be made in February.
"Everybody is aware that these are difficult days as a result of the global financial crisis," Ms Gillard told reporters.
But she said fast-tracked infrastructure funding for the sector was on its way as part of the Government's overall infrastructure spending plans.
"The Government is intending to fast-track an infrastructure announcement - the Prime Minister has made that clear - and that infrastructure announcement will include infrastructure in higher education."
The sector is awaiting the results of the first $304 million funding round from the newly created $8.7 billion Education Investment Fund.
Victoria has been pushing for a more student-driven demand model for universities, in line with its controversial TAFE reforms under which both public TAFEs and private providers are eligible for public funding.
Southern Cross University vice-chancellor Paul Clark told The Australian yesterday that his merger with Charles Sturt was aimed at boosting flagging higher education enrolments in regional Australia, and Professor Bradley was "personally quite supportive of the way in which we want to go".
Professor Clark said Ms Gillard had already asked the pair to submit a commonwealth grant application for a feasibility study to advance the initiative to the next stage.
"They have dentistry and pharmacy and veterinary science; we have law and forestry so there's complementarities," he said.
Professor Clark "pretty much" ruled out forced redundancies as a result of the merger, saying the plan was about growth.
In a separate development, the Government yesterday released $111.5 million to fund specific programs at universities under the annual disbursement of the Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund. About $206 million has now been disbursed from the fund, reducing it to about $75million.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24788101-12332,00.html
Universities ready to spend $1bn
Andrew Trounson December 12, 2008
Article from: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24789948-12332,00.html
UNIVERSIITES are vowing to start spending almost immediately some $1 billion in fast-tracked infrastructure funding from Canberra.
After months of intensive lobbying, the sector has received an early Christmas present from the Rudd Government with $500 million in one-off funding for teaching and learning infrastructure, of which much will go into refurbishing facilities built during the 1960s and 1970s.
"This will be a significant boost for the construction industry and it will have a real impact on the economy," said Paul Johnson, vice-chancellor at La Trobe University and an expert on economic and social development.
The higher education infrastructure funds are part of a nation-building exercise as the Government attempts to head off a severe economic downturn.
Canberra has also increased by $276 million the amount of funding for new projects under the Education Investment Fund, and will now fund 11 of the 14 short-listed projects at a total cost of $580 million.
There is a one-off injection of $500 million for vocational education and training infrastructure, of which $400 million will be made available to public TAFEs and a further $100 million for other not-for-profit providers of adult and community education. With most of the additional funding coming outside the $8.7 billion EIF, universities hope there will be significant ongoing money for infrastructure.
The sector believes it is facing a total backlog in infrastructure spending of $10 billion-$15 billion.
“These funds will have a tangible and almost immediate impact on our universities,” RMIT vice chancellor Margaret Gardner said in a statement on behalf of the Australian Technology Network of universities.
“It's welcome, it's unexpected and it can be put to good use immediately,” Professor Gardner said. The funds will be available from 1 July. The $500 million one-off funding for universities will be allocated according to student load, while research intensive national university ANU will receive an additional $10 million top-up.
The funding comes on top of the $500 million Better Universities Renewal Fund distributed earlier this year. Of the 14 short listed projects under the EIF, the three that missed out were Murdoch University's "pedagopolis" education facility, ANU's giant Magellan telescope and Ballarat's innovation and enterprise centre.
The biggest winner was Sydney University's new Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease, which was awarded $95 million. Next in line were $90 million for Melbourne's Peter Doherty Institute for Immunity and Infection and $89.9 million for Monash's New Horizons Centre for science and engineering.
Article from: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24789948-12332,00.html
UNIVERSIITES are vowing to start spending almost immediately some $1 billion in fast-tracked infrastructure funding from Canberra.
After months of intensive lobbying, the sector has received an early Christmas present from the Rudd Government with $500 million in one-off funding for teaching and learning infrastructure, of which much will go into refurbishing facilities built during the 1960s and 1970s.
"This will be a significant boost for the construction industry and it will have a real impact on the economy," said Paul Johnson, vice-chancellor at La Trobe University and an expert on economic and social development.
The higher education infrastructure funds are part of a nation-building exercise as the Government attempts to head off a severe economic downturn.
Canberra has also increased by $276 million the amount of funding for new projects under the Education Investment Fund, and will now fund 11 of the 14 short-listed projects at a total cost of $580 million.
There is a one-off injection of $500 million for vocational education and training infrastructure, of which $400 million will be made available to public TAFEs and a further $100 million for other not-for-profit providers of adult and community education. With most of the additional funding coming outside the $8.7 billion EIF, universities hope there will be significant ongoing money for infrastructure.
The sector believes it is facing a total backlog in infrastructure spending of $10 billion-$15 billion.
“These funds will have a tangible and almost immediate impact on our universities,” RMIT vice chancellor Margaret Gardner said in a statement on behalf of the Australian Technology Network of universities.
“It's welcome, it's unexpected and it can be put to good use immediately,” Professor Gardner said. The funds will be available from 1 July. The $500 million one-off funding for universities will be allocated according to student load, while research intensive national university ANU will receive an additional $10 million top-up.
The funding comes on top of the $500 million Better Universities Renewal Fund distributed earlier this year. Of the 14 short listed projects under the EIF, the three that missed out were Murdoch University's "pedagopolis" education facility, ANU's giant Magellan telescope and Ballarat's innovation and enterprise centre.
The biggest winner was Sydney University's new Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease, which was awarded $95 million. Next in line were $90 million for Melbourne's Peter Doherty Institute for Immunity and Infection and $89.9 million for Monash's New Horizons Centre for science and engineering.
Victoria University offers voluntary redundancies
Andrew Trounson December 11, 2008
Article from: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24784840-12332,00.html
VICTORIA University has delayed any forced redundancies into next year, instead launching a voluntary redundancy program.
Vice-chancellor Elizabeth Harman has suggested that total job losses could be less than first anticipated as management looks to cut sessional and contracting staff while seeking other savings beyond staff cuts.
The National Tertiary Education Union is now claiming a partial victory for its campaign against VU's plans to cull up to 270 people, claiming that the university hasn't been able to find the redundant staff it had been expecting.
“They went searching for a tail of short courses and units and found that the dog didn't have a tail,” NTEU branch president Richard Gough told The Australian.
But Professor Harman said forced job losses were still a possibility next year, with management's work with consultants Ernst & Young to identify non-viable courses and surplus staff simply taking longer than expected to complete.
“This isn't the end of the story,” Professor Harman told The Australian.
“We are still going to end up with staffing changes.”
But Professor Harman said management had identified more than $10 million worth of annual savings from expected voluntary departures, cuts to sessional staff and other savings in higher education. However, that is still short of her total savings target for higher education of $16.5 million.
Mr Gough said any compulsory sackings next year would spark industrial action under the current enterprise bargaining talks.
VU has identified 140 higher education courses and 500 units that it will discontinue or phase out next year, reducing the total offering to around 200 courses and 1,700 units. Mr Gough said many of these course were already being taught out or had fallen into disuse, which is why management had failed to find significant redundancies from them.
VU is looking for further course cuts, including shedding the teaching of languages other than English, with the exception Vietnamese, for which VU is the only provider nationally.
Professor Harman said the cuts would allow VU to redeploy resources into high demand areas like teaching, business, accounting, and nursing.
In October, Professor Harman shocked staff with plans cut up to 150 higher education academic staff to secure $16.5 million in savings. A further $8.5 million in savings has been targeted from up to 100 job losses in administration, and a further $2 million in savings from about 20 job losses in TAFE.
The announcement, which had been formulated without consulting the union, angered the NTEU and worried local politicians. But while Professor Harman admitted that the communication strategy could've been better, she said the announcement had “focused minds” and there was now a renewed focus among deans and school heads to find savings while minimising job losses.
“Minds are now very focused,” Professor Harman said.
“The savings actions now being proposed by higher education faculties are deeper and wider than throughout 2008 when the budget depended on higher education productivity gains that didn't materialise.”
She said “the last few months have been a hard process at VU and I wouldn't be the only person disappointed in that we haven't succeeded in making sure all our staff fully understand what we want to do.”
“I'd have preferred to have had better communication strategies out there.”
Indeed management and the union still remain at loggerheads over the need for staffing cuts. Professor Harman says the cuts are needed to stave off looming deficits and in the wake of the failure of past productivity drives. But the NTEU believes VU is overstating the urgency, which it says is being exacerbated by the cost of the redundancies themselves and the university's construction plans as it reconfigures its spread of campuses.
The NTEU has called for an independent party to give a view on the university's situation and Professor Harman has agreed to consider it in further talks with the NTEU.
Mr Gough said the union wanted to “look for solutions that don't require targeted redundancies but still leave the university in a sustainable position”.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24784840-12332,00.html
Article from: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24784840-12332,00.html
VICTORIA University has delayed any forced redundancies into next year, instead launching a voluntary redundancy program.
Vice-chancellor Elizabeth Harman has suggested that total job losses could be less than first anticipated as management looks to cut sessional and contracting staff while seeking other savings beyond staff cuts.
The National Tertiary Education Union is now claiming a partial victory for its campaign against VU's plans to cull up to 270 people, claiming that the university hasn't been able to find the redundant staff it had been expecting.
“They went searching for a tail of short courses and units and found that the dog didn't have a tail,” NTEU branch president Richard Gough told The Australian.
But Professor Harman said forced job losses were still a possibility next year, with management's work with consultants Ernst & Young to identify non-viable courses and surplus staff simply taking longer than expected to complete.
“This isn't the end of the story,” Professor Harman told The Australian.
“We are still going to end up with staffing changes.”
But Professor Harman said management had identified more than $10 million worth of annual savings from expected voluntary departures, cuts to sessional staff and other savings in higher education. However, that is still short of her total savings target for higher education of $16.5 million.
Mr Gough said any compulsory sackings next year would spark industrial action under the current enterprise bargaining talks.
VU has identified 140 higher education courses and 500 units that it will discontinue or phase out next year, reducing the total offering to around 200 courses and 1,700 units. Mr Gough said many of these course were already being taught out or had fallen into disuse, which is why management had failed to find significant redundancies from them.
VU is looking for further course cuts, including shedding the teaching of languages other than English, with the exception Vietnamese, for which VU is the only provider nationally.
Professor Harman said the cuts would allow VU to redeploy resources into high demand areas like teaching, business, accounting, and nursing.
In October, Professor Harman shocked staff with plans cut up to 150 higher education academic staff to secure $16.5 million in savings. A further $8.5 million in savings has been targeted from up to 100 job losses in administration, and a further $2 million in savings from about 20 job losses in TAFE.
The announcement, which had been formulated without consulting the union, angered the NTEU and worried local politicians. But while Professor Harman admitted that the communication strategy could've been better, she said the announcement had “focused minds” and there was now a renewed focus among deans and school heads to find savings while minimising job losses.
“Minds are now very focused,” Professor Harman said.
“The savings actions now being proposed by higher education faculties are deeper and wider than throughout 2008 when the budget depended on higher education productivity gains that didn't materialise.”
She said “the last few months have been a hard process at VU and I wouldn't be the only person disappointed in that we haven't succeeded in making sure all our staff fully understand what we want to do.”
“I'd have preferred to have had better communication strategies out there.”
Indeed management and the union still remain at loggerheads over the need for staffing cuts. Professor Harman says the cuts are needed to stave off looming deficits and in the wake of the failure of past productivity drives. But the NTEU believes VU is overstating the urgency, which it says is being exacerbated by the cost of the redundancies themselves and the university's construction plans as it reconfigures its spread of campuses.
The NTEU has called for an independent party to give a view on the university's situation and Professor Harman has agreed to consider it in further talks with the NTEU.
Mr Gough said the union wanted to “look for solutions that don't require targeted redundancies but still leave the university in a sustainable position”.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24784840-12332,00.html
29 October 2008
Council split on planned job cuts
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24566844-12149,00.html
Andrew Trounson
October 29, 2008
IN the face of looming strike action, Victoria University has determined to carry through with its plan to cut up to 270 staff in the next six months despite the prospect of a federal funding boost following the Bradley review in December.
But it was a split 13-7 vote with two independent councillors backing a motion from staff council members to freeze the redundancy pending a review of finances. While chancellor Frank Vincent said the redundancy program remained on track, noting that every effort would be made to minimise job losses, the National Tertiary Education Union claimed it was encouraged by the split vote.
In an email to staff, NTEU branch president Richard Gough said the vote "indicates a level of disquiet in council about management decisions that has rarely been seen".
The NTEU has condemned the job losses as premature given the prospect of a funding boost from Canberra in 2010 once the Bradley review reports in December. And commenting on the job losses earlier this week, Victorian Skills and Workforce Participation Minister Jacinta Allan told The Australian "it is unfortunate that Victoria University has made this decision prior to the completion of the federal Government's review of higher education which is expected to report in December 2008".
Andrew Trounson
October 29, 2008
IN the face of looming strike action, Victoria University has determined to carry through with its plan to cut up to 270 staff in the next six months despite the prospect of a federal funding boost following the Bradley review in December.
But it was a split 13-7 vote with two independent councillors backing a motion from staff council members to freeze the redundancy pending a review of finances. While chancellor Frank Vincent said the redundancy program remained on track, noting that every effort would be made to minimise job losses, the National Tertiary Education Union claimed it was encouraged by the split vote.
In an email to staff, NTEU branch president Richard Gough said the vote "indicates a level of disquiet in council about management decisions that has rarely been seen".
The NTEU has condemned the job losses as premature given the prospect of a funding boost from Canberra in 2010 once the Bradley review reports in December. And commenting on the job losses earlier this week, Victorian Skills and Workforce Participation Minister Jacinta Allan told The Australian "it is unfortunate that Victoria University has made this decision prior to the completion of the federal Government's review of higher education which is expected to report in December 2008".
28 October 2008
Victoria University sackings are 'premature': Victorian Government
An excerpts. For full article go to the webpage below
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24559796-12149,00.html
Victoria University sackings are 'premature': Victorian Government
by Andrew Trounson
October 27, 2008
While careful to avoid criticising VU, Victoria's Minister for Skills and Workforce Participation Jacinta Allan told The Australian, "it is unfortunate that Victoria University has made this decision prior to the completion of the Federal Government's Review of Higher Education which is expected to report in December 2008".
"The Victorian Government looks to VU to ensure the people of western Melbourne continue to have access to quality education," Allan said.
Victoria University's council will consider tonight a proposal to eventually shut down its Melton and Sunbury campuses in Melbourne's north west in what will be a fiery meeting, at the centre of which will be the planned job cuts.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24559796-12149,00.html
Victoria University sackings are 'premature': Victorian Government
by Andrew Trounson
October 27, 2008
While careful to avoid criticising VU, Victoria's Minister for Skills and Workforce Participation Jacinta Allan told The Australian, "it is unfortunate that Victoria University has made this decision prior to the completion of the Federal Government's Review of Higher Education which is expected to report in December 2008".
"The Victorian Government looks to VU to ensure the people of western Melbourne continue to have access to quality education," Allan said.
Victoria University's council will consider tonight a proposal to eventually shut down its Melton and Sunbury campuses in Melbourne's north west in what will be a fiery meeting, at the centre of which will be the planned job cuts.
26 October 2008
The Australian 17 Oct 2008
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24510896-12332,00.html
Victoria University to cut 250 jobs
October 17, 2008
UP to 250 jobs are expected to be cut at Victoria University in the next six months.Vice-chancellor Elizabeth Harman today announced the university will “undertake a program of targeted and voluntary redundancies”. The increasingly competitive nature of Australian universities and poor enrolments in unpopular courses are being blamed for the decision. “Victoria University wants to be ready to embrace the new challenges and opportunities this will bring in 2009,” Professor Harman said on the university's website. She said staff would be lost in small units and courses that were failing to attract student numbers.
But the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has called on Professor Harman to resign, calling the announcement the largest job cut in Australian university history. “The university management must be held to account for this disaster,” Matthew McGowan, NTEU Victorian Division Secretary said. “Both the state and federal governments must intervene to protect the future of education in the western region of Melbourne.”
Victoria University to cut 250 jobs
October 17, 2008
UP to 250 jobs are expected to be cut at Victoria University in the next six months.Vice-chancellor Elizabeth Harman today announced the university will “undertake a program of targeted and voluntary redundancies”. The increasingly competitive nature of Australian universities and poor enrolments in unpopular courses are being blamed for the decision. “Victoria University wants to be ready to embrace the new challenges and opportunities this will bring in 2009,” Professor Harman said on the university's website. She said staff would be lost in small units and courses that were failing to attract student numbers.
But the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has called on Professor Harman to resign, calling the announcement the largest job cut in Australian university history. “The university management must be held to account for this disaster,” Matthew McGowan, NTEU Victorian Division Secretary said. “Both the state and federal governments must intervene to protect the future of education in the western region of Melbourne.”
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