Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor ‘under pressure’ amid UTS job cuts backflip
Macquarie Uni is expected to forge ahead with redundancies in two faculties this week, but the union claims the move could result in less classroom time for students – a claim the uni itself disputes.
Macquarie University is expected to forge ahead with forced redundancies among academics in two faculties this week, but the move could result in less classroom time for students, their union claims.
The National Tertiary Education Union said staff are awaiting confirmation on up to 18 proposed redundancies – 12 in the Faculty of Arts and six in Science and Engineering – after almost 50 people accepted voluntary redundancies.
The NTEU obtained internal modelling through the which it claims show the job cuts “come at the direct expense of students”.
Under the restructure, it claims, teachers would be expected to spent only 36 minutes per arts student to mark their work – down from an hour – and tutorial weeks would be reduced by 25 per cent.
The Daily Telegraph has sited evidence of the documents, which detail total workloaded hours across multiple disciplines and the number of allocated tutorial and lecture weeks.
NTEU Macquarie Branch president Dr Nick Harrigan said the modelling makes the consequences for students “impossible to ignore”.
“This is the clearest evidence yet Macquarie’s cuts come at the direct expense of students,” he said.
“The Vice-Chancellor is stealing from Australian students the right to a world class education.
“Macquarie already has one of the worst staff to student ratios in the world. The Vice-Chancellor thinks he can deliver a cut-price education and students won’t notice, but the reality is his managers are already planning to cut their semesters by (up to) 25 per cent.”
A spokesman for Macquarie University said the union’s claims were “incorrect” and represented a “fundamentally misunderstanding” of the modelling data – which is based on the current average minutes casual academics spend marking.
Some courses already teach for 11 weeks rather than 13, he said.
The spokesman also confirmed the uni would be “providing staff with an update on the change process” in both faculties, but disputed the numbers provided by the union.
“The university has been committed to using forced redundancies as a last resort in this change process,” he said.
Dr Harrigan – whose own neck is on the line – said he’s spoken to dozens of school leavers who are “devastated” by course cuts not only at Macquarie Uni but across the higher education sector.
However, a move at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) last week to renege on its plans to discontinue its teaching and international studies courses has given the union a fresh zeal.
“That was a huge win,” Dr Harrigan said.
“People are watching, and the Vice-Chancellor at Macquarie will be under enormous pressure … staff want to know why our Vice-Chancellor hasn’t come out and matched that.”
The union’s Macquarie Uni branch has also penned an open letter to Vice-Chancellor Bruce Dowton accusing the administration of making decisions that have “damaged morale, weakened academic capability, and cut deeply into the student experience”.
The letter also calls on the uni boss to follow in Western Sydney University’s footsteps in publicly committing to no forced redundancies.
Under a workplace change proposal released in June several degrees and majors would be “rested” including the Master of Electronics Engineering and Bachelor of Information Technology (Networking), and the staff headcount would be reduced by 54 full-time-equivalent positions.
Macquarie University has been contacted for comment.
Originally published as Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor ‘under pressure’ amid UTS job cuts backflip
Join the conversation
Public or private? What the 2025 NAPLAN results tell parents
Read more
$26k inner-Sydney girls’ school fails in search for new leader
Read more