Twenty college positions may go

Almost one-third of jobs at the College of Education are set to be slashed if proposed changes go ahead.

At a ''sombre'' meeting yesterday, college staff were informed of the proposal to cut 20 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, Tertiary Education Union organiser Shaun Scott said. The University of Otago expected to make a decision sometime after October 13.

If cuts are made, they will be the latest in a string of job losses since the college merged with the university in 2007.

Mr Scott said academic staff would be reduced to 38 FTEs from 49.6 and general staff cut to 10.13 FTEs from 18.34.

''That's a significant cut in the college,'' he said.

''Members are dismayed about the impact and the impact on the delivery of teacher education.

''We are concerned about a huge amount of experience and skills being lost from teacher education.''

College staff were ''pretty pessimistic'' about preventing the cuts but the TEU planned to find alternative options to the proposed 20 job losses, he said.

The university confirmed the meeting had been held but would not be drawn on the proposed job cuts, or their extent.

Any suggestion of numbers was ''pure speculation'', a university spokeswoman said.

The expected job losses come after the university announced in June it would drop its one-year graduate diploma and a four-year bachelor's degree in education studies from next year.

An email notifying students of the changes leaked to the Otago Daily Times at the time said the decision was made at the ''university level'' for ''financial reasons''.

Humanities pro-vice-chancellor Prof Brian Moloughney said earlier in the year enrolments in the graduate diploma had declined from 188 in 2010 to 96 this year and ''very small numbers'' took the four-year bachelor of education.

-timothy.brown@odt.co.nz

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