Auckland, Otago top report card

Critics say the raw data the Tertiary Education Commission uses could be misleading. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Auckland and Otago Universities have come out with the top marks in a tertiary performance indicator - but critics warn that the report card does not give a true picture of who is really performing the best.

The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) has released what it hopes will be the first of an annual overview of how institutions measure up against four performance indicators.

Auckland University, which was ranked this week as New Zealand's top university in the 2010 QS World University Rankings, had the highest performance scores for successful completion of courses and student progression to higher levels of study.

Otago topped the other two categories with the highest percentage of students completing qualifications and students retained in study.

Lincoln and Waikato Universities also featured highly, but Massey University ranked the lowest in all four categories.

The indicators were broken down by the type of provider such as universities, institutes of technology and polytechnics and wananga.

In the institutes category, Manukau Institute of Technology was the only one to be ranked in the top five across all four indicators.

While it is envisaged the indicators will provide information for potential students, TEC said it might also be used when allocating funding levels with badly performing institutes potentially facing cuts if they don't improve.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said: "Ultimately the vast majority of students are studying to improve their employment prospects.

"It's important that we develop timely ways of showing them which pathways through study are best at achieving that.

"While these top-level indicators are necessarily general in nature, they do give a broad perspective on how institutions are going in educating, supporting and encouraging their respective bodies of students."

But student representatives say caution is needed when looking at the indicators as there are significant gaps in the data provided.

Union of Students' Associations co-president Pene Delaney said students considered many different factors when deciding where to study and the new indicators only provided a very small part of the picture.

"There is no reference to quality of teaching and learning, or to student satisfaction."

Universities NZ said the information showed the country's eight universities were performing at a high level and delivering value for money.

However, chairman Derek McCormack warned that using the data to rank universities in league tables would be a mistake.

"There are many factors that influence these indicators on an institutional level.

"The part-time versus full-time mix, age, ethnicity and socio-economic background of students, as well as the types and lengths of courses or qualifications offered, all contribute to an institution's results.

"The raw data that the TEC uses for these indicators does not adjust for any of these factors and is misleading if taken out of context."

He said an example was a university with a large number of part-time, older and extramural students, which might not perform as well on the indicators as a university with a more traditional student body.

Mr McCormack said universities accepted the need to be accountable for the public funds they received, but other sources such as annual reports provided more meaningful information.