Tertiary education reform

When Nicky completed her BA in 1980, she graduated footloose and debt-free. Daughter Lily won't be so lucky. To get the same qualification now, Lily will need a loan of at least $12,000 just to cover tuition fees.

Since the mid 1980s, tertiary education has been in an almost constant state of reform. Faced with rising student numbers, governments have devoted considerable attention to funding questions such as who pays and how. Fee hikes and student loans have been the upshot.

The quality of academic research has also been under the spotlight with the creation of the Performance-Based Research Fund and its system for rating researchers and the research quality of tertiary institutions.

Questions of teaching quality (how well subjects are taught and how effectively learning is assessed) have been given far less attention by successive governments. Yet these questions are at the very heart of matters for students.

When it comes to assessment, Dr John Hattie, a professor of education at Auckland University, believes the tertiary education community has a lot to learn from NCEA. He argues that despite "many hiccups in implementation", NCEA is much fairer and has brought about much greater transparency in what's being assessed and what students need to do to achieve.

This kind of transparency is the exception rather than the norm at tertiary level. John Hattie says: "We implicitly trust our academics to know what they value in their subjects, to set examinations and assignments, to mark reliably and validly." But evidence suggests this trust may not always be warranted.

Teaching the teachers

Between 1999 and 2007, tertiary student numbers rose from 306,000 to 484,000. Over the same period the number of qualifications offered increased from 3982 to 5098.

While students now have more choice about what they study, research shows that tertiary teachers may not always have the skills to teach them.

Dr Alison Viskovic, Associate Dean of Faculty of Arts and Communication at the Whitireia Community Polytechnic, did her PhD on tertiary teacher training. She found academic staff often had no formal teacher training and learnt their trade by "trial and error". Many new tertiary teachers can feel quite isolated, she says, with few opportunities to observe others teaching or of being observed by a peer and given feedback. The problem can be worse for part-time or temporary tutors, some of whom may be graduate students with little experience.

Research by Victoria University's Dr Luanna Meyer echoes these findings. She's leading a three-year project looking at assessment policy and practices in four tertiary institutions. She says academic staff are usually appointed on their knowledge and qualifications rather than their teaching expertise. Tuition in how to do the teaching side of the job doesn't necessarily follow once they start work.

Shortcomings in teacher training have also been routinely identified in audits carried out by the New Zealand Universities Academic Audit Unit. Universities do have training and development centres which offer staff courses on teaching and assessment. However, audit reports note there is often relatively low uptake of these courses.