Global Development

Factors Shaping Universidades Technologicas in the Next Ten Years

The point of view of the Coordinator General of the Universidades Technologicas includes a perspective of the universities operating in a social context. The way in which the university affects society and vice-versa is not always clear. What seems clear is that institutions of higher education will shape, transform, create, influence and change social realities as a result of lively exchanges, confrontations and dialogs.

In ten years, by 2015, the institutions will be a product of actions taken now and the social context in which they occur. Today, the issues are ones of consolidation and development. Five of these issues are outlined as follows:

• 
  In the student issue, the UTs offer higher education to a sector of society that otherwise would not have access to a post secondary level of education if a UT were not accessible in the development area in that region of the state.
  
• 
  In the academic issue, programs offered have a high degree of applicability and the external evaluation of student results indicates an acceptable level of quality. Also faculty benefit from opportunities to come together in their academic areas.
  
• 
  In the social issue, the goal is to obtain increased recognition of the degrees awarded by the UTs. This is an area that needs more dedication of time and work. This is also an area where the professions exert a cultural and status element rather than a rational view of the realities of what is needed to perform in certain careers.
  
• 
  In the labor issue, it is sometimes the case that institutions of higher education fail to satisfy the skills requirements needed in the labor market. The UTs have worked to minimize this situation by linking with business/industry. These collaborative efforts have enabled graduates to move more quickly into the workforce. In a study of 89,643 graduates, 76 percent secured their first career positions within six months.
  
• 
  In the financial issue, the need for resources to operate the UTs with efficiency and quality depends on providing clear and transparent fiscal data that shows how resources are used.
  

The system of UTs is proud of its efforts as depicted in the review of UT programs by the Interinstitutional Committee for the Evaluation of Higher Education which determined that 158 programs were operating at highest quality levels.

Also, the UTs have supported the development of programs of Continuing Education which were reviewed by international teams that found the educational models to be promising. These reviewer results have generated action plans to work to fulfill the recommendations for development.

For the future of the UTs, the system has selected a process of continuous development rather than sporadic efforts that are not administratively connected. The objectives for the future, in the judgment of the Coordinator General, will center on the following considerations.

• 
  The technological revolution and the spectacular and dramatic impact on the content of programs and the performance requirements for technical careers.
  
• 
  Insufficient economic growth to reduce unemployment.
  
• 
  The inevitable slowness of change in educational processes, especially at the primary and secondary education levels.
  
• 
  Activating the accreditation process in an environment of an abundance of degrees and of doctoral programs of low quality in a world that expects professional competence.
  

The administration of the UTs is particularly concerned about the ability to arrive on-time to incorporate the “Third Industrial Revolution” of technology along with the concomitant social-labor changes. These technologies, according to the Office of the Coordinator General, may include artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, robots, new materials, laser exploitation, optic fibers and more.

Additional challenges include responding to globalization, environmental deterioration, social inequities, deformation of values and the culture of minimum effort among others.

Thus, the vision for the UTs for the coming decade will be a higher education system that offers good quality education that fulfills the expectations of students and the community, responding in an effective way to the needs of the business community with competent graduates. Within the UTs the future looks to greater cohesiveness of academic faculty and closer relationships with the social fabric of the cultural and business communities. Evaluation processes will be further developed along with methods of external accreditation reviews.

A major goal is for the UT system to be flexible, innovative, integrated with other systems of higher education and with transparent processes in both finances and methods of operation.

The UT system looks to the possible re-engineering of the educational model, with greater applicability of the educational programs, not only to the business community, but with greater acceptance from the public. This recognition, if achieved, will most likely be based on professional competencies wherein graduates of the UTs will have the abilities to perform the tasks of a professional occupation. It is most important that the students become the competent workers of the future. Basing future curricula on competencies will surpass the concepts of traditional credentials and enable the student to reply to an employer with what he or she can do rather than what he or she studied.

This qualitative jump requires the UTs to organize programs with flexibility, address new and forgotten populations through programs of professional certification and offer companies a new worker with the abilities to plan, solve problems, show creativity and have the abilities to communicate, collaborate and innovate.

Universidad Technologica del Sur de Sonora (UTS)

Universidad Technologica del Sur de Sonora, hereafter referred to as UTS, was selected as an example of a two-year technical institution of higher education partly due to its newness, but also as an example of how it has developed its mission and its relationship to the communities it serves.

UTS was proclaimed an approved and new institution of two year technical higher education on August 30, 2002 and commenced operations on September 2, 2002 – a rapid deployment in a very few days.

The two year university was developed in accordance with feasibility studies focusing on the needs of the Southern region of the State of Sonora. Based on these studies the State decided to locate the technological university in Ciudad Obregon, the principal city in the county of Cajeme, to serve students in the 12 southern counties of the state. This is a region with a population of 900,000 persons or 40 percent of the population of the State of Sonora.

The primary mission of the institution is to serve the people and the communities of the region. Therefore, in what has been a principally agricultural and sea fishing economy, UTS endeavors to bring new knowledge and skills to the people and the community in order to enable the development of a broader economy. Hopefully this will serve to enable young people to remain in the area and contribute to the development of communities and standard of living.

UTS is located in the center of the Yaqui Valley, a place of ancestral history and culture that has been home to local peoples in the past, today and tomorrow. The major endeavor is to continue the development of the valley, but in new ways with know how, creating and using new techniques, methods, equipment and tools, resulting in students and alumni who are responsible, enterprising, creative and continually learning. A goal of UTS is to enable local people to develop the knowledge and skills to attract business and industry or to emerge as entrepreneurs to that they do not have to leave the area to secure employment.

The four technical major programs are as follows:

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  Production and process technology
  
• 
  Marketing/commerce
  
• 
  Computer Science/Information Technology
  
• 
  Electronics/automated systems
  

Currently in 2005, 541 students are enrolled in the four programs, that 10 years earlier would have been unlikely programs in these communities. The students represent a steady growth in enrollment since 2002. For example the student cohort of 2002 – 2004 enrolled 138 students. Of that number 86.7 percent graduated and 61.2 percent are employed in the area of their major area of study. Of the current class, 123 were scheduled to graduate in November 2005.

Additional program areas involve preparing students for Certification in CISCO, Microsoft certifications and Java and Solaris languages. Ten professors have achieved certification in these specialties and 80 Information Technology students have completed their certification exams.

To support these programs the college has maintained relationships with 80 large, medium and small corporations in the area to support the programs.

The Language Center is another specialty program area at UTS featuring language schools in English and French. For the French language a relationship with the University of Regina in Canada has resulted in internships for faculty in 2004 and 2005.

An innovative project of UTS is the Software Site, an in house “company” of the university that employs students as interns in software development for and with local corporations. The project enables companies to develop software and applications for a lower cost and provides the students with work experience. The institution as has been working with industries to certify labor force capabilities, using agreed upon standards of performance.

Another direction of UTS has been to focus on the quality of education, giving primary attention to the process of teaching and of continuing education. As a part of this effort UTS has worked to establish a process of evaluation of instructor performance and faculty development. This can be a challenge in an institution where of 61 professors, 24 are full time and 37 are part time.

Professors are evaluated on seven variables, as follows:

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  Punctuality and attendance
  
• 
  Timely delivery of information to Department of Academic Services
  
• 
  Teaching performance
  
• 
  Participation in related activities
  
• 
  Development of knowledge in teaching area
  
• 
  Cooperation in university affairs
  
• 
  Involvement in activities that complement the subject area taught
  

The faculty improvement program depends in some degree on the cooperation of major universities in the State of Sonora and across Mexico. In August to December 2005, 28 professors were enrolled in programs of advanced technology, representing 45.9 percent of the professors in the areas of Information Technology and Engineering.

The development of programs at UT del Sur de Sonora in three short years exemplifies the pressure on these institutions to rapidly develop new programs for the twenty first century while responding to local economic development goals for change. At the same time the UT is working to bring along the industries of the area and the residents of the surrounding communities to a common vision of development for the future.
Acknowledgements

Our gratitude goes to Dr. Arturo Nava Jaimes, the Coordinator General of the system of Universidades Technologicas for his excellent assistance to develop the sections describing the process of creating and planning for the Universidades Technologicas in the 31 states of Mexico. Dr. Nava Jaimes has been the chief administrator of the system of UTs since its inception in 1991. He developed a comprehensive monograph addressing the history, challenges and future of the system for this chapter. We are also grateful to Veronica Murillo of the UT de Coahuila for her translating assistance of Dr. Nava Jaimes’ monograph and tailoring the information to my questions for the chapter. Our gratitude also goes to Lic. David Valladares Aranda, at UT del Sur De Sonora for his paper outlining the beginnings of his institution and the projections for the future.

References

CIA – The World Factbook, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mx.html

Nava Jaimes, Dr. Arturo, Coordinator General, Universidades Technologicas, Secretary

of Public Education, Mexico, D.F., Unpublished Monograph, December 2005.

Secretary of Public Education, National Program of Education 2001-2006,

First Edition, Mexico, SEP, 2001, pp. 270.

CGUT (2004) Strategic Agenda of the Subsystem of Technological

Universities, Work Document, CGUT: Mexico

Gomez, H. (1997) The Agenda of the 21st Century. Towards a Human

Development. Mexico: UN Program for the Development.

Secretary of Public Education, Information System about Linkage of the

Technological Universities, institutional support unedited, General

Coordination of Technological Universities, Mexico, 2005, 03-2001-

080109522000-01.

Secretary of Public Education, Educational path of the young people of the

Technological Universities, institutional document unedited, General

Coordination of Technological Universities, Mexico, 2004.
Secretary of Public Education, The external evaluation in the Technological Universities. An effective way to the accounts revision, reports and recommendations 1996, 1999 and 2002, institutional document unedited, General Coordination of Technological Universities – Limusa Editorial, Mexico, 2004, pp.136.

Rodriguez-Gomez, Roberto and Casanova-Cardiel, Hugo, “Higher Education Policies in Mexico in the 1990s: A Critical Balance”, Higher Education Policy, 2005, 18, pp. 51 – 65.

Valladares Aranda, Lic. David, Director, Division of Careers, Universidade Technologica del Sur de Sonora, “The Beginning of the UTS in Cajeme in the XXI Century”, unpublished paper, November 2005.
Further Education in New Zealand
Jim Doyle

New Zealand consists of two main islands situated in the south west Pacific mid way between the equator and the Antarctic. It has a population of 4 million, 13% of which is identified as Maori, 75% European and the balance of Pacific Island or Asian extraction. It is generally accepted that Maori settlement dates back to about the 12^th century whereas European settlement did not begin in earnest until the mid 19^th century.

The land area is 104,000 sq miles (265,000sq km), the same as the State of Colorado. In terms of both length and latitude New Zealand would stretch from Los Angeles to Portland Oregon.

New Zealand is a British Commonwealth country and has strong British traditions in its form of government (parliamentary democracy) and its education system in particular.

Policy Context

The entire New Zealand education system and in particular the post secondary sector has been the subject of sweeping reforms since 1990. In order to fully understand them it is necessary to place the reforms within the wider reforms that took place in New Zealand during the mid 1980s.

New Zealand’s response to the oil shock of 1973 was to adopt a ‘fortress’ approach of protectionism and increasing subsidies to support its agriculture sector which accounted for the bulk of foreign exchange earnings. By 1984 the country was on the verge of bankruptcy and the election of a centre-left Labour government in July of that year marked a watershed in economic policy. The new government was faced with a series of crises and responded with a set of the most rapid and sweeping reforms in the country’s history. Indeed these reforms, in terms of pace and impact were probably unsurpassed by any democracy in modern times.
The reform process itself involved an immediate devaluation and subsequent floating of the New Zealand Dollar, a replacement of the highly complex and progressive taxation system with a flatter and simpler system, the introduction of an almost universal consumption tax⁹³, and the complete removal of all agricultural and consumer subsidies together with the removal of import licensing and export incentives.

In addition to the above reforms the Government moved quickly to reform the State sector. These reforms involved three strategies; (a) corporatization, or commercialization, (b) deregulation and (c) privatization. Commercially-orientated state enterprises that were not privatized were established as State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The government then turned its attention to the efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector which had been significantly down-sized. The intent was to expose the public sector to the same realities faced by the private sector.

One of the key intentions behind the reform process was to establish government Ministers as ‘purchasers’ of defined ‘outputs’ and departments of the State as suppliers of ‘outputs.’

The macro reform process adopted by the New Zealand government replicated as far as possible the conditions existing within a free market. Wherever possible, the ‘purchaser’ and ‘provider’ of specified services were to be clearly identified and separated. These elements of the reforms (market imperative and ‘purchaser/provide split’) are crucial in understanding the post-school reform process which was to begin in 1988.

Development of the New Zealand Polytechnic System:

The New Zealand polytechnic system evolved out of the high school system. In the latter half of the 19^th century a network of ‘technical high schools’ emerged beside the more traditional academic high schools. Initially these technical high schools had a duel vocational and hobby focus⁹⁴ but gradually evolved into a distinctive alternative to the more academic traditional high school. By 1939 more than 13,000 full time students were attending 27 technical high schools.

In the immediate post World War II years an increasing number of trades required compulsory attendance at technical high schools. At about the same time, ministers and senior officials⁹⁵ began to see the need for technical education to focus more on higher levels in order to meet the demands of a post-war economy. The first step in this direction was taken with the establishment of the Technical Correspondence Institute⁹⁶ in 1946 which was intended to provide distance learning opportunities in technical education for servicemen returning from the War. In 1956 Dr Beeby, the Director-General of Education recommended to Parliament that the technical high schools in the main centres be converted into senior colleges. That process took place during the 1960s. At that time they were known as Technical Institutes. By 1970 there were eight technical institutes in the country.

During the 1970s pressure mounted from regions outside the main urban centres to establish technical institutes in the regions. It may be of interest to American readers that the ‘60s and early ‘70s were marked by a flirtation with the US Community College system, in particular the two year transfer concept and the non-vocational, Liberal Arts feature. In 1974 legislation was passed enabling the establishment of Community Colleges which included some but not all features of the US model. The New Zealand community colleges would include a ‘continuing education’ component in addition to the usual vocational education focus. In this way community colleges would be in a position to reach a ‘critical mass’ level that otherwise might not be possible if they were confined to only a vocational focus. By the end of the ‘70s nine community colleges had been established.

The 1980s saw the establishment of an additional 8 community colleges, giving a total of 25 technical institutes and community colleges.

The 1984-87 governments embarked on a series of sweeping reforms as mentioned above. The then Minister of Education⁹⁷ sought to remove the perceived differences between Technical Institutes and Community Colleges by encouraging all of them to use the word ‘Polytechnic’ to describe themselves. All but two⁹⁸ choose to do so. Since that time there has been somewhat of a trend for polytechnics to use the term Institute of Technology to describe themselves and by 2005 nine of the 20 polytechnics in New Zealand use the term Institute of Technology. An amendment to the Education Act recognized the term Institute of Technology as being equivalent to the word Polytechnic.

The election of 1987 returned the government to power and it immediately embarked on a series of reforms in the ‘social portfolio’: education, health etc. The policy decisions relating to the tertiary education reforms were published in August 1989⁹⁹. This policy document led to a major amendment to the existing Education Act (1989) in 1990¹⁰⁰. The objects clause¹⁰¹ of the Education Amendment Act states:
The object of the provisions of this Act relating to institutions is to give them as much independence and freedom to make academic, operational, and management decisions as is consistent with the nature of the services they provide, the efficient use of national resources, the national interest, and the demands of accountability.
As part of the overall reform process the Department of Education was disestablished in 1989 and replaced by a much smaller, policy-focused Ministry of Education. A new single bulk funding system was introduced in 1991 to cover all institutions including universities, polytechnics and colleges of education (teacher training colleges). A new governance structure was created¹⁰² and a new strategic planning mode of operating was put in place.

In addition to establishing an entirely new Ministry of Education, two other key agencies were established under the education reforms: The New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Education and Training Support Agency later renamed as Skill New Zealand.

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) was established under Part XX of the Education Amendment Act and the objects clause of that part of the Act states:
The object of the provisions of this Act relating to the Authority is to establish a consistent approach to the recognition of qualifications in academic and vocational areas.
In addition to being charged with the quality assurance function inherent in the clause above, NZQA also had the following listed among its functions:

• 
  To oversee the setting of standards for qualifications in secondary schools and in post-school education and training
  
• 
  To develop a framework of national qualifications in secondary schools and in post-school education and training in which-
  

(i)All qualifications have a purpose and a relationship to each other that students and the public can understand; and

(ii)There is a flexible system for the gaining of qualifications, with recognition of competency already achieved
It should be noted that the powers of the NZQA described above did not extend to the universities. The Act confers all academic quality assurance oversight within universities on the New Zealand Vice Chancellors’¹⁰³ Committee.

An appreciation of the place of the framework of national qualifications referred to above is crucial in understanding the role of industry in tertiary education. The framework, The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) was an ambitious undertaking. Put briefly, NZQA attempted to develop a comprehensive framework of national qualifications extending from year 11 at high school (10^th grade) through to post graduate qualifications. The key characteristic of the NQF, however, was not its scope but rather its very concept; it was to be entirely standards-based rather than norm-referenced. In this case every qualification would consist of a set of competencies (standards) and learners would be assessed on their ability to demonstrate the various competencies. The achievement of a particular competency would earn a certain number of credits and the accumulation of a pre determined number of credits would earn a qualification. On average one credit would be expected to equate to 10 hours of learning and a year’s work to 120 credits. Each qualification would be comprised of a collection of unit standards which would describe the required skills. The initial Framework had 8 levels: levels 1-4, National Certificate, levels 5-6 National Diploma, level 7 Bachelor’s degree and level 8 post-graduate.

The NQF was enthusiastically welcomed by industry leaders who saw the initiative as an opportunity for industry to define the skill sets industry required and thereby end the monopoly which hitherto had been enjoyed by the academic community. A brief description of how industry ‘engaged’ the NQF is contained elsewhere in this chapter under the heading Regulatory Environment. Not surprisingly the universities rejected the very concept of the NQF believing it would lead to ‘atomization’ of their holistic degrees and a rejection of the concept of excellence inherent in norm-referencing.

The other key agency that was established at that time was Skill New Zealand. Section 271 of the Education Act (1989) states:

The functions of the Agency are to administer the Access Training Scheme, the Apprenticeship Schemes, the Primary Industry Cadet Scheme, and such other activities and programmes relating to education or training as the Minister determines after consulting such bodies and persons as the Minister considers appropriate.
This description does not accurately capture the key function of Skill New Zealand which was to assist industry training. It performed this function by (a) registering Industry Training Organisations (ITOs), (b) negotiating training agreements with ITOs and (c) allocating public funding for ITOs.

January 1991 marked the beginnings of the new system. This new environment would be characterized by a group of independent institutions formulating their own strategic plans and competing for students. The funding system was relatively simple and based on a subsidy which was paid to institutions on the number of equivalent full time students (EFTS) the institution enrolled. The subsidy itself was differentiated according to the type and level of programme a student enrolled in, i.e. the subsidy for engineering programmes was higher than the Business subsidy and the subsidy for Medicine was higher than Engineering. Subsidies were delivered ‘in bulk’ on a monthly basis and none of the funding was ‘tagged’, in other words an institution was completely free to decide on how it should spend its revenues, be it capital, payroll, whatever.

A standard tuition fee system was introduced in 1990 to offset the costs of rapid expansion of the system. This was repealed by a new government from 1992. In addition to receiving subsidies for tuition costs, institutions were free to set tuition fees. Students were eligible for allowances intended to meet their living costs, targeted on their parents’ income. A government subsidized student loan scheme was introduced to meet students’ tuition fees, up-front course and as a contribution to living costs for students not entitled to an allowance. Repayments are made through the income tax system and the minimum repayments are income contingent.

During the course of the 1990s the growth in the number of EFTS places the government was prepared to subsidize was rationed at about 5% per annum. At the same time the subsidy rate was being cut by about 5% which resulted in institutions passing on the cuts through higher tuition fees. As the decade progressed, the involvement of private training establishments (PTEs) was encouraged thereby increasing the competitive pressures on the state institutions. It should be noted, however that the level of subsidy available to PTEs was significantly lower that that available to the state institutions (which included an identifiable capital component) and the competitive pressures were moderated by the tight ‘rationing’ of funded places imposed by government.

One of the most significant reforms made at this time as far as the polytechnics were concerned was the right granted by the Education Amendment Act to institutions other than universities to offer degree programmes. The polytechnic sector responded positively to this opportunity and by the end of the 1990s more than 100 degree programmes were being delivered by polytechnics. Having regard to the fact that all polytechnic degrees are required to be ‘taught mainly by people engaged in research’¹⁰⁴ the growing burden of this condition is showing signs of causing some institutions to reflect on the sustainability of the current suite of degree provision.
The decade following the initiation of the reform process witnessed many changes for the polytechnic sector. Steady growth saw the number of equivalent full time students enrolled in the polytechnic sector double to 60,000. By the end of the ‘90s more than 10,000 students were enrolled in more than 100 degree programmes in polytechnics.

The ability of polytechnics to offer degree programmes led a number of the larger polytechnics to seek university status. In New Zealand the use of the word ’university’ is protected by the Education Act¹⁰⁵. Bodies seeking to use the term ‘university’ are required to apply to NZQA for consent. Before NZQA deals with such requests, the Minister must consider whether or not the establishment of an additional university is in the national. Subject to this requirement the consent process involves NZQA establishing an international panel to determine if the applicant institution displays the necessary characteristics of a university. NZQA then advises the Minister who may then, after appropriate consultation with interested parties, recommend to the Governor-General that the applicant be established as a university.

The Auckland Institute of Technology (AIT) was the first polytechnic to embark on the ‘university’ quest and in November 1999 just a week before the General Election of that year the Minister of Education consented to the establishment of the Auckland University of Technology as from 1 January 2000. In addition to AIT, Unitec Institute of Technology, also in Auckland, initiated an application to become established as university in the late ‘90s. The incoming government in 1999 made it clear that it did not wish to see another university established but this did not deter Unitec from proceeding with its application. At the time of writing (late 2005) the Unitec application had led to the introduction of two pieces of legislation hostile to the application being introduced in Parliament. Partly in response to those moves Unitec adopted a litigious approach. It won a significant High Court action against the government in 2005 and was pursuing further litigation.

In addition to the attempts by the two Auckland institutions, Wellington Polytechnic considered its prospects of becoming established as a university and on concluding that its prospects were extremely slim, adopted a strategy of ‘merging’ with an existing university. In 1999 Wellington Polytechnic went out of existence as a separate institution and became part of Massey University.

While the glittering prize of university status beckoned a few of the bigger polytechnics during the ‘90s, the growing competitive pressures presented an entirely different reality for a number of other polytechnics. By 2001 three institutions had experienced insolvency and were disestablished and the assets ‘merged’ with other polytechnics.

During 1998 the government decided that the time was appropriate to introduce a fully competitive market. By way of achieving that objective, the cap on funded places in tertiary education was removed and private providers would henceforth receive the same level of subsidy as State institutions. This policy decision was based on the belief that as a result of many years of steady growth in participation in tertiary education, the capacity for continued growth was limited, so the fiscal risk to the government was not high. That policy advice proved to be dramatically flawed but it would take a few years before the true magnitude of the error was manifested.