TOP STORY: EIT axes first-year stage courses

Staff Reporters
The Eastern Institute of Technology has dumped all of its first-year performing arts courses.
The first-year drama, dance and voice courses have been canned although the second-year courses will still go ahead. Staff involved in the programme, including high-profile international tenor Patrick Power, were in the process of being made partially redundant.
The tertiary institute blames lack of numbers but ex-tutors and students are pointing the finger at its management.
Freelance director, actor and tutor Lisa-Jane Hay, section co-ordinator for the drama course between 1999 and 2001, said she was "gutted".
"Everyone, ex-students, tutors, know the real reason this has happened and EIT needs to stand up and explain," she said. It was common knowledge that it had failed because of management issues " and they've lost lots of highly qualified tutors because of this".
Ms Hay said she believed the faculty of arts and social sciences had ignored "personality issues" that had contributed to the difficulties in retaining students and staff.
"I am constantly hearing from tutors and coaches who are unwilling to recommend the course to their students, due to management problems."
Former Havelock High School head of drama Ken Keys, who now runs Hawke's Bay Youth Theatre HaBYT, first proposed the course in the early 1990s. Today he was saddened by the news, which would mean even more young people having to leave Hawke's Bay to study.
"The impression that someone like me has is that, essentially, there is a conflict between the bureaucratic system and what is a performing arts project."
When the course began there were hardly any drama courses offered in New Zealand. To compete against courses offered at UNITEC and Toi Whakaari, EIT's course had to consistently measure up. But Mr Keys did not believe it had. However, EIT chief executive Chris Collins said the course was by no means permanently cancelled.
Faculty staff would be exploring whether it could be salvaged and "repackaged" to attract more enrolments next year.
That might mean offering a shorter course, with fewer areas of specialisation, perhaps just the voice aspect of the course, which was the most popular.
He would not comment on whether any staff would lose their jobs, saying that was still being looked at but Hawke's Bay Today understood most staff were in the process of being made partially redundant and stood to have their hours halved.
The drama course has had low enrolments for the past two or three years. The institute had tried to boost numbers but by the end of January, the equivalent of only 16 fulltime students had enrolled - nine of them for the voice course, while dance had attracted only 2.5 students.
"The population base in the wider Hawke's Bay region does not appear large enough to sustain new intakes of students into separate dance, drama and voice streams of the programme each year," Mr Collins said.
A number of graduates of the two-year course had gone on to drama and voice careers. Historically, Maori had made up a large proportion of students in the programme.
Continuing low enrolments meant the course had reached the point where it was neither financially viable nor educationally sound, so this year's first-year intake was cancelled, Mr Collins said.
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