Massey back to its roots

This arises from the decision that from next year its vet and other agricultural courses will have more ‘real ag stuff’ in them in the first year, as opposed to in the second year as now.

“Originally our roots were in ag and it’s fair to say until a few years ago we diversified when the government funding was about bums on seats. We opened a campus in Albany and another in Wellington,” Kelly told Rural News.

“We introduced fine arts and business courses and all sorts of others, and Massey started losing its name as an ag university; we want to take it... back a bit.”

This does not mean the university will close its non-ag courses, but it will re-emphasise the importance of agricultural and veterinary courses.

This also fits Kelly’s view that there should be only one agricultural university in New Zealand, and given what’s happening at Lincoln that possibility looms.

“We are a country smaller than Sydney’s [population] yet we have eight universities. We know Waikato University is talking about opening another medical school 100 miles from Auckland and I think that is silly and a waste of money.

The competitive model is normally fine, but I am not sure it is applicable in education.”

Kelly sees a need for strong political leadership to bring about a re-think of the competitive model in universities.

Growth in student numbers is in Auckland only, he says, so universities spending a lot on marketing to compete for students brings no particular gain.