varsity vs tech
(Further to the debate over on DPF's blog about whether or not Unitec should be granted university status.)
I used to be quite snobbish about universities and polytechs - firmly of the view that the former was superior to the latter and that only stupid people went to tech. Of course I spent far too long at uni myself and the people I encountered there seemed to share this view.
But once I had actually got out in the real world and met actual people I realised that techs are absolutely vital, just very different from universities. The role they fill is to train people in more vocational ways, in specific skills, some of which are hands on and practical and some of which are more esoteric. In a way the divide could be characterised as think (uni) vs do (tech). Not that people who come out of techs are mindless drones, of course, but they have practical skills that they can come straight out and use in the career they have chosen, whereas university graduates basically always need to be trained up. Even the few vocational university courses, law and medicine, require further training before you can practice or have built in a practical component in recognition of this.
I think that difference should be cherished and protected, not allowed to be eroded by the commercialisation of education that has been underway in our country for a long time now.
The terms "university" and "polytechnic" do need protection - not just from the state institutions using them inappropriately, but also from PTEs who can be quite mercenary about these things. If the names can just be attached to any organisation then how long will it be before you can basically buy a NZ "university" degree?
3 comments:
The problem is that places like AUT and Massey Wellington are Universities in name only. They still teach the same stuff that they taught when they were polytechs, but now their government-assigned designation as universities gives them a competitive advantage over the other polytechs who are deprived of university status. It's grossly unfair.
The alternative for Unitec is not to continue as they are. If they can't become a university in their own right they will be forced to merge with an existing university. If they aren't even allowed to do that, they will eventually just have to allow a university to buy all their assets.
As Nigel said it is a matter of fairness. If AIT was allowed to become a university, it does disadvantage Unitec that they are not.
Personally I tend to regard only foru institutions as being true top class universities - Auckland, Victoria, Canterbury and Otago with maybe Massey on a good day.
Almost no university or polytech course turns out people who can do useful work without training. Quite a lot of them result in people who believe they can however.
The worst in this respect are "business" courses that leave people with the impression that they can walk into a job managing people after 3 or 4 years as a student.
Comp. sci. is about as bad - most computer science students must be shocked that 90% of NZ uses MS software almost exclusively and they're gonna have to abandon their cherished ideology to get a job..
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