The proportion of staff employed as lecturers at New Zealand universities dropped by a third over the space of a decade and an increasing focus on research was partly behind the change, a report has found.
This comes as the University of Otago, and New Zealand universities in general, have come in for criticism from Associate Prof Gordon Sanderson and the Tertiary Education Union, for neglecting teaching in favour of research.
The recently published Ministry of Education report on the make-up of New Zealand's tertiary education workforce found the proportion of academic staff employed as lecturers at universities dropped from 56% in 2001 to 38% in 2011.
The report said the decline was caused by a mixture of an ageing workforce - some long-serving lecturers had been appointed as professors - and a change in ''strategic decision'' causing universities to employ more research-focused academics.
This change in direction resulted in the number of research-only staff at universities increasing from 669 (4.2% of total workforce) in 2001 to 1172 (6.1%) in 2011.
The report said both trends were strongest following the introduction of the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) in 2004, which aimed to increase the quality of research.
Overall, the number of full-time equivalent academic staff at universities increased from 7250 in 2001 to 8330 in 2011.
''The introduction of the PBRF changed the universities' requirements from academic staff. The universities needed assurance that the academics they employ were likely to be successful in research and so contribute to research funding and research reputation,'' the report said.
In comparison, there had been only ''small shifts'' in the make-up of academic staff at New Zealand polytechnics, which were less affected by the PBRF.
However, at first because of declines in international student numbers and then because the Government reduced provision for lower-level certificates, academic staff numbers employed at polytechnics had decreased since 2007.
After being shown the report, Otago University Students' Association president Francisco Hernandez said Otago University ''needs to seek a balance''.
''That being said, I do have a lot of sympathy for the university; the Government has created this situation whereby the PBRF is weighted towards research disproportionately.
''Our remedy is to put in teaching quality as one of the measures in PBRF in order to get some of that balance back,'' he said.
Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said teaching was a ''huge part of every tertiary institution'' and more than 80% of total Government tertiary funding was allocated to teaching and learning.
''Even the PRBF, which incentivises good research, is designed to create a strong research-led teaching environment at universities.''
In 2013, the University of Otago was allocated $55 million in PBRF funding, and $215 million in student achievement component funding, he said.
