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MOVING TO FRONT FROM JUNE 24, 2023: SEE UPDATES ON THE SITUATION IN THE COMMENTS
The proposed cuts are very dramatic (see also, and also this); you can add your name, as I have done, to a petition here. Comments are open for additional information from those in New Zealand or elsewhere.
It's pretty clear that there are serious problems in the NZ education system, from top to bottom. For lower levels, see the discussion here: https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/opinion/new-zealands-great-education-decline-and-the-future-of-work/
NZ, like many countries, is facing demographic changes that are objectively hard for higher education, with at best slowing growth in university age people and perhaps even a decline, with an increase in older people (who pay fewer taxes when they retire.) This is likely to get worse. In addition, NZ has a big problem with brain drain, which again hurts the tax base, and perhaps has a more indirect impact on universities as more people who would be natural supporters leave for places with more opportunities. NZ also was hard hit by the pandemic, with closures as strong or stronger than in many parts of Australia, and a huge decline in foreign students (an important part of the university budget) that has not fully recovered, and in any case left a big hole in budgets. As noted in one of the articles above, universities did not receive as strong of support as they might have during the pandemic. (This was true in Australia, too, where it was for nakedly political reasons, but it's less clear to me why this would have been so in NZ.) So, the cuts seem short-sighted and misguided to me, but it's clear that there are real and difficult problems facing the system that can't be wished away.
Crisis averted for now it seems:
The NZ Government is stumping up an extra $128 million for cash-strapped tertiary institutions in the hope it can stave off the hundreds of job cuts threatened and programmes being slashed.
The crisis has not been averted. The $128 million announced today is for the entire tertiary sector over two years. This amounts to an additional $6 million in 2024 and 2025 for Victoria University of Wellington, which had announced its cuts in response to a $33 million budget deficit in 2023.
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