NZ students could take courses from multiple universities under potential shake-up

University of Otago's clocktower building. Photo / RNZ

Students of the future could find themselves taking courses from multiple universities as a wide-ranging review of the sector looks set to recommend universities taking a more collaborative review.

Sir Peter Gluckman, the former chief science adviser to the Prime Minister, is leading a university advisory group, which is tasked with recommending changes to chart a sustainable path forward for New Zealand’s eight universities.

The review was meant to deliver the first of two reports in August, but that was delayed, meaning the review will now be submitted no later than the end of this month. A final review, which will deal with funding is scheduled for February but this may change. Gluckman is also reviewing the science system in a review designed to work in tandem with the universities.

Gluckman told the Herald he did not want to get ahead of what is submitted, which has not yet been finalised, but said that “quite clearly at the undergraduate level an awful lot of collaboration is possible”.

“What we have decided is we need to treat it as a system. We have a system of eight autonomous universities but there are systems you can put on,” he said.

Gluckman said cost-of-living issues were causing more students to study locally rather than head to another city and face high rents. Some universities like Victoria and Otago were already collaborating by offering language courses to each other’s students. This might become more common in the future to avoid double-up and ensure students could get the education they need, wherever they may be living.

“I think it’s something like 70% of students go to the university closest to their home,” Gluckman said.

“The cost-of-living issue for students is real,” he said.

In future, students could find themselves taking courses from multiple universities with less need to move around the country for some courses - although some travel would still be required.

Gluckman said he had recently met the head of the Norwegian Research Council, an organisation which funds what Gluckman called “joint university degrees” in research-intensive areas.

Students taking these degrees could find themselves taking courses from a number of different universities.

“You might be in Tromso, but you are partially doing your biochemistry degree with people in Oslo or Bergen,” Gluckman said.

He said this can get challenging with graduate degrees, which required supervision.

Gluckman’s review was given broad terms of reference, including how the university system serves New Zealand and its size; how to prompt collaboration; how to ensure quality of teaching and research; funding mechanisms, equity and the role of international education.

Gluckman said one of the challenges for universities is that no one had looked at it from a system level before. The Tertiary Education Commission, the agency that sits between central government and universities, is primarily a funding body and does not have remit to look at the system as a whole.

“It’s a funding body, it’s not a strategic body,” Gluckman said.

The challenge, he said, was to create a system that respected university autonomy and academic freedom, but which also delivered to the Government what it wanted for the funding it gives universities.

What the Government wants is something along the lines of courses that prepare students for the current labour market, courses that help people retrain, quality research for society and business, and academics performing a “critic and conscience” role.

Sir Peter Gluckman, former chief science adviser to Sir John Key's National government. Photo / Warren Buckland

The review will head to Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Creating incentives for these many outputs - as they’re often called in the public service - is no easy task.

The Government already has some funding incentives in the tertiary system through the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) which tries to reward quality research through funding, although it is often criticised. Gluckman’s review has been asked to evaluate the PBRF’s role.

“We want to think about how universities serve New Zealand’s interests and that includes the students’ interests, but universities are so much more than places to teach students,” Gluckman said.

“It’s not just research, it’s engaging with business, and communities, it’s [being] the intellectual wellspring,

“They are places of culture, they are places of lots of different things in a society and that is essential to democracy,” Gluckman said.

The review’s work had been wide-ranging. Gluckman told the Herald his views about the importance of campus life and how this was being challenged by remote studying and the increasing demands placed on students to work while studying.

“A lot of the students are now not just working out-of-hours as they used to, they’re working in-hours and relying on recorded lectures,” Gluckman said.

“Campus life is actually important to students,” he said.

The review would not likely come up with any recommendations on this point like minimum attendance requirements - ”that would be interfering with institutional autonomy, I think,” Gluckman said - however, he said the review would “certainly highlight the concerns we have”.

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.