Jill Rowbotham | May 28, 2008
DEAKIN University and the National Tertiary Education Union are on a collision course over plans to introduce an academic year divided into equal trimesters.
The university characterises the change as standardising a year already divided into three, but unequally, with two calendar year semesters and a much shorter summer session.
But the NTEU claims it will diminish teaching and learning time, and place unnecessary pressure on academics and students.
Deakin's deputy vice-chancellor (academic) John Rosenberg said there had not been enough time between the end of semester two and the beginning of the next year's semester one to fit in a full summer session.
The restructure would offer the prospect of more students completing their courses at an accelerated rate.
The collective agreement between the university and NTEU has expired and the union is expecting to file its next log of claims within a fortnight.
"They are concentrating the teaching and learning into 12 weeks instead of 13," NTEU acting branch president at Deakin Patrick Flanagan said.
Staff feared an increased workload and diminution of time for research.
"We would have to be convinced it was in our interests," Mr Flanagan said. "The mood of the staff will be to reject it, not to agree to it under any circumstances. I think it's Deakin just trying to be noticed."
Deakin is not the only institution contemplating and coping with structural change that has left staff and students concerned about their own welfare. The clash of interests highlights the imperative universities feel to maximise the efficiency of course delivery in an era where every dollar and minute are counted and re-counted, in the interest of husbanding scarce resources.
Plans to move to trimesters are well advanced at Charles Sturt University although the university emphasises nothing is yet finalised.
Exploration of ways to implement a trimester system, which goes by the moniker "unified session model", began last year, with the assistance of education services consulting firm PhillipsKPA.
Deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Ross Chambers said a final report including recommendations was due in September. The university senate then would decide on a course of action by the end of the year, with the expectation of introducing changes in 2010.
Students had been consulted via a website where they could register comments but there would be another phase of consultation once the report was finalised.
"Moving towards three equal-length semesters in theory is a good thing and the benefit is students will be able to fast-track degrees," student senate president David Atkinson said.
But he said students were concerned about possible disadvantage arising from a shortening of the mid-term break and the prospect of dropping from 13 teaching weeks to 11. They also feared it would put pressure on students who supported their studies by working in the mid-term and summer breaks.
"We are trying to consider all these things, we are consulting, we have not got to the end yet," Professor Chambers said. He noted no student would have to study across all three terms.
With a student body much more diverse than it used to be, the two-semester year was not suitable for all students, especially at CSU, the largest provider of distance education in the country, he said.
It has about 18,000 students in that category, compared with about 12,000 internal students.
Some wanted to accelerate their progress towards degrees, taking better advantage of what has been called the summer session; some external students wanted to do fewer units but across three semesters and some working students could also find that to their advantage.
There is also friction over structural changes at the University of NSW, which this year reduced its teaching weeks to 12 in each semester.
While the university claimed this has been to bring it in line with practices at other Group of Eight universities, student discontent has rumbled on since the start of the year and now, according to their representatives, they are considering protest action over the move.
UNSW student representative council president Phuong Au said an online survey of student reactions to the new regime had attracted about 800 responses in the past fortnight.
"There is a lot of disquiet but a lot of our time has been taken away, including time to organise protests," Ms Au said.
