KEY POINTS:
Predictably, the decision by the University of Auckland to further restrict entry has been howled down as elitist.
So it is, and so it should be. The tertiary education reforms of the last two decades may have created the impression that a university education is a democratic right. But unrestricted entry lowers the talent average of new students and the best students suffer; the currency of the qualification risks devaluation.
Entry restrictions have long been in place in other faculties, notably medicine (since 1968), engineering, commerce and business. Now the university has decided to give itself the power to set the bar higher in arts, education, science, theology and first-year law. In doing so it is simply following the direction charted by Government, which increasingly funds institutions on their research quality not on the number of students enrolled.
Auckland is unquestionably the country's leading university and, by some measures, among the top 50 in the world. Everyone should have the chance to upskill, but there are many tertiary-education options and the current skills shortages, in the trades and elsewhere, are an argument for encouraging non-elite students away from elite institutions. Auckland's plan is not about denying opportunity, but about maximising the potential return on public investment in our best and brightest. That's not elitism; it's just common sense.
