Responding to calls from universities for the Government to renew a ‘one-off’ funding increase, the Taxpayers’ Union is telling the universities to tackle the bloat in non-academic staff in order address their financial challenges.
Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:
“Research from The New Zealand Initiative has shown that New Zealand universities have around 40% more non-academic than academic staff. Tackling this bloat should be top priority.
“We know that the large number of non-academic staff isn’t necessary because in the US, Canada, UK and Australia the ratio of non-academic to academic staff is significantly lower.
“Spending on non-academic staff is almost half of NZ universities’ salary expenditure. Cutting this back would go a long way to fixing their funding woes.
“The Government must not give in to calls for further funding from universities who have not made a real effort to sort themselves out first. Any government involvement should be targeted at cutting red tape and changing the pricing model to bring more market discipline into our universities.”
Universities must tackle bloat, not cry for more handouts
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