Funeral for tertiary education: Massey and Victoria students protest at Parliament

Last Tuesday, Massey and Victoria students walked to Parliament wearing all black and carrying a coffin to protest the many job and course cuts happening across universities.  

“Shame, shame, shame”, students wailed as they made their way up the Parliament steps, chanting into the cold wind. 

Last month, Massey vice chancellor Jan Thomas invited all staff to express an interest in voluntarily redundancy.

“Tertiary education took all my money”, one person yelled, “Nooooo I love my lecturers”. 

The job cuts target as many as 100 jobs in the College of Sciences, 70 jobs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, 35 in the College of Creative Arts, and 15 in the Business School.   

The cuts were a way of improving the university's financial position. Massey recorded an $8.8 million deficit in 2022 and last month announced a year-to-date operating deficit of $14.2m.  

However, in June the government announced a $128 million dollar funding boost for universities and a higher education review in response to protests against mass staff redundancies and course cuts.  

Saul Grant-Drummond, Massey Students Against Cuts (SAC) organiser, stood on the Parliament steps saying, “Life at Massey has become depressingly surreal.” 

He said up to one third of the papers currently offered at Massey are under threat. 

“Our senior leadership tries to disguise the cuts as policy.”  

Massey had finalised its No and Low Enrolment policy as well as the Digital Plus policy which would make it easier for the university to cut courses.  

The Digital Plus policy aims to anchor each college to be taught at just one physical campus with online study, unless it can be financially justified.  

The policies did not specify if current students will have to move to a different campus if they wish to continue in-person study, or if staff will be made redundant or relocated. 

Grant-Drummond said, “Behind our backs, they’re firing hundreds of people, they’re hiding, and with no communications with staff, no communications from students.” 

He said the No and Low Enrolment policy meant courses with low enrolment will get less funding and therefore less students, and this cycle will continue. 

Massey SAC organiser Romany Tasker-Poland wore a black veil as she weeped for the “death of universities”.  

“There is no transparency at Massey, at least at Victoria they have been clear about announcing what they intend to do. They’ve not only not announced these things, but they’ve deliberately tried to sneak cuts through.”  

She hoped Massey would “come to the table” and go to the government to demand more funding.   

In response to the protest, a Massey University spokesperson said, “It is not a good use of the public money we have been entrusted with to continue to support areas which are no longer attracting student demand and interest”. 

They said the university had consulted with its “university community” on both the policies.  

The spokesperson said the ‘Voluntary Enhanced Cessation’ provided an entirely voluntary opportunity for staff with an ‘enhancement’ of up to a year’s salary. 

Alex Brown, a 1st year Screen Arts student, was against all the job and course cuts, especially the way Massey had gone about it.  

“It's such a slimy and backwards way of doing it, especially trying to keep it from all the students and all the people who would be against it.”  

Brown only discovered the news about the job cuts after overhearing teachers discussing it when he worked at Tussock Cafe on the Wellington campus over the break.  

He felt it was ridiculous he had to go out of his way to find out such big news he should have been made aware of by Massey.  

He wanted Massey to stop gutting degrees and making courses homogenous, “art degrees can’t just be the same thing with two people trying to teach the intricacies that we’ve built up over the decades”. 

Jessica Ye, Victoria University Wellington Student Association (VUWSA) president, believed students could sway the election this October, “politicians, you are warned”.  

She compared the situation to the UK higher education review commissioned by previous Prime Minister Theresa May, which put students into even more debt.  

The income threshold for loan repayments was lowered from more than £27,000 to £25,000 and repayment terms for student loans were extended from 30 years after graduation to 40 years. 

“We should be pushing forward a vision of public education,” she said, “we deserve a whole lot better”.  

No representation from Massey’s student association, Te Tira Ahu Pae, attended the protest.  

A protest at Otago University took place at the same time, where students commandeered the business building. One Otago student faced arrest for wilful damage of property.