Once again, whole departments and their staff (academic and general) and students are under attack at Canterbury – and other universities. The attempt by Canterbury management to abolish American Studies and Film and Theatre Studies, while also wielding the axe against Classics and Art History is an attack on jobs, knowledge and students.
Universities in New Zealand are being turned increasingly into businesses. Just like a sausage factory produces and sells commodities called sausages, universities are being transformed into businesses which sell commodities called ‘degrees’.
The university as a business means charging students more in fees, crowding more students into classes, dumbing down courses for sale as commodities, increasing and intensifying the working hours of staff, holding down wages and eroding work conditions in general and cutting courses and departments which may be socially useful but don’t generate large amounts of money – all this in order to maximise profits.
The education system in universities is coming to more and more resemble factory-line production.
Why is this happening?