New polytechnic seen as job threat

 Stephen Parker, vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra. Source: The Australian

THE University of Canberra council has been given the go-ahead for the establishment of a polytechnic from next year, sparking fears it will "cannibalise" the diplomas offered by potential merger partner Canberra Institute of Technology.

The National Tertiary Education Union also fears that jobs at both institutions could be lost as teaching load is shifted into the lower-cost polytechnic. It believes the teaching staff of the polytechnic probably won't be covered by either the NTEU or the Australian Education Union.

Those fears were stoked when the UC council this month set aside extra money for potential redundancies next year.

But UC vice-chancellor Professor Stephen Parker said the provision for redundancies in the middle of next year was foreshadowed in the 2009 union agreement and was unconnected to any merger with CIT.

The university plans to promote the 2012 polytechnic courses at its open day on Saturday, including diplomas in communications, accounting, information technology and business informatics that match similar courses run by CIT.

"If I were at CIT and engaged in any of those programs I'd be worried," NTEU branch president at UC Craig Applegate said, adding the polytechnic could also lead to job losses at the university. "The whole point of it is to spend less per student."

Professor Parker said even if the CIT merger went ahead, the university would still continue with its own polytechnic, "which handles the overlap between diploma and associate degrees.

"We don't expect major intakes into UC Poly until 2013," he said.

CIT chief executive Adrian Marron said while the polytechnic would increase competition for CIT, he noted that his diplomas had a more vocational emphasis and could sit alongside the UC diplomas in a merger.

The ACT government is considering a merger of CIT and UC after a report by Denise Bradley recommended they combine as a dual-sector university.

The NTEU believes the polytechnic is a cost-cutting exercise to shift some first-year and eventually second-year teaching into the lower-cost polytechnic where diplomas will count as credit to a degree.