By HOLLY REID
A new teaching structure in 2010 may decrease the value of University of Canberra degrees, according to the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).
The trimester, which will introduce an optional mid-year term between 15 June and 30 July, will allow students to compress the overall length of their degree by completing an extra one to two units per semester. Yet according to Craig Applegate, head of the NTEU ACT branch, the shortening of a degree’s length may have a negative impact on future employment opportunities for graduates.
“The average employer is going to think: one person has a three-year degree, and the other has a two year degree,” he said. “Even if the two-year degree may have done the same amount more intensively, it will have a lower status.”
He said with the optional term running for only nine weeks, instead of the 14 allocated to Semesters One and Two, the quality of education provided in the units might be called into question.
“I think the university is trying to look innovative, which can be a good thing,” said Applegate. “But it must be wary of its status as a ‘degree factory’ and ensure the standards in the mid-year term can stand up against those of other institutions.”
He also expressed concerns that enterprise agreements with the university specify that current teaching staff are not required to increase their workload without a considerable pay rise.
“The university does not have the finances to pay their teachers more,” said Applegate. “So mid-year units will be taught by casuals who lack the expertise and experience of full-time staff.”
The president of the University of Canberra Students’ Association (UCSA), Kurt Steel, said the UCSA had voiced these concerns to the Academic Board earlier this year, but had been overruled. “I personally put forward a motion to postpone the trimester system… so that these issues could be properly sorted out before it was approved,” Steel said . “But while the motion gained some support from staff members, it seemed the rest were too scared to challenge administration.”
Steel said students had not been consulted on the changes, and many were still unsure as to how the trimester would affect the 2010 academic year.
University of Canberra vice-chancellorStephen Parker denied that mid-terms units would be of a lesser quality .
“We have been teaching units intensively in the summer semester in the past without suggestions that the quality is affected,” said Parker.
“Units will be taught in a more intensive mode, but we will also be offering more online units, and using the time to fit in research projects, fieldwork, internships and placements.”
He said the university would accommodate for the extra units by increasing the workload of full-time staff that currently work fewer hours than their contracts specify.
“Normally there are only 26 weeks in a calendar teaching year, so [the mid-year term] is an opportunity for students to extend this and study for a shorter period overall,” he said.
Parker said many Australian universities operated successfully under a trimester system, and recent polls conducted by the UC had shown strong student and staff support for the changes.
