Instead, gloomy clouds and strong headwinds seem to prevail, with seemingly little let-up, for our universities.
And nobody seems to have much appetite to do anything about the highly significant and hugely worrying problems which are grinding the sector down.
It’s no exaggeration to say that deep cuts to university programmes, the inevitable loss of students and the flow-on effect in terms of reductions in the amount of new knowledge and important research findings are going to hinder New Zealand Inc.
Any plans and dreams we may have as a nation to boost our international profile, support young researchers with a decent, stable career path, and lift our pitifully low national investment in research and development will go out the window if these deep cuts to our universities continue. A vast amount of work has gone into the Te Ara Paerangi white paper outlining how Aotearoa can improve the science sector during the next decade or so.
We like to compare our innovativeness with similar-sized countries like Denmark and Finland, but our R&D spending, around 1.5% of gross domestic product, is just half theirs and well below the OECD average of 2.35%.
Is there nobody in any government department who can see the importance of better funding our universities and understand how not doing so might wreck our future hopes?
Massey University is the latest to announce likely job cuts, in the sciences, as finances fall into the red.
The proposed slashes there follow hard on the heels of similar efforts made recently by axe-wielding senior administrators at the University of Otago and Victoria University of Wellington.
Meanwhile, at Otago University, it appears most of the institution’s professors, about 120 top academics, have signed a letter asking acting vice-chancellor Prof Helen Nicholson to reconsider how managers are running the money-saving restructuring.
The professors also apparently want an overhaul of the senior leadership team and more opportunities for academics to be involved in decision-making.
Good for them.
You can guarantee there’ll be more going on behind the scenes, that has yet to come to light, which sparked the letter.
Don’t mention the el.ct..n
Now, what was it? That might be your first thought on waking up this morning. That there’s something important happening today. There is indeed.
When it comes down to it, today is probably the most important day of the year, even perhaps the most important day since the last such day three years ago.
In fact, it is so important, so crucial to our country and our future over the next three years, that we aren’t allowed to talk about it.
Well, not today, and not in any great detail anyway, for fear we might pressure you over whatever it is you are meant to be doing on this very special day.
Anyone who has been out there during the past nearly two weeks doing whatever it is we are meant to do today — and there have been many many of you — has been hugely persuaded at every turn by the kind of things we are not allowed to be swayed by today.
Whatever it is has been a huge distraction for weeks, all over radio and television, in print, online, on social media, and in every nook and cranny on people’s fences and pieces of spare ground.
But under New Zealand’s ridiculous and archaic laws, you’re not allowed to be coaxed one way or the other today.
That discrepancy is something which needs to be seriously looked at.
So anyway, don’t be influenced by anything. And, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to go and do this vital act today.
Whatever it is.
