When studying is just the job

Tough times for the economy and in the job market have led to greater demand for tertiary education as people look to sharpen their skills.

It seems unfortunate timing, then, for universities to be restricting access, as several, including the University of Otago intend.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce says that ultimately, each university has academic independence and makes its own decisions about who to admit.

"However, I am confident that Otago has the right incentives to maximise the number of students it admits, who have a reasonable likelihood of success at university study.

"The Government's role is to fund as many places as it reasonably can. We are funding record numbers of equivalent full-time places at universities in 2011, which are about 5600 more than in 2008. We are also funding record numbers of core places at polytechnics, and continuing high numbers of places at wananga and private training organisations.

"We are working very hard to ensure that New Zealanders from all educational backgrounds have the right opportunities to gain - at a level that suits them - world-class skills and knowledge that allows them to get ahead in life."

Craig Ebert, senior economist for the BNZ, says the more a country can "up-skill" its population, the better, although he emphasises that has to be "in the right areas".

"It is no good turning everyone out to be an accountant when there are already enough of them. You have to let market forces work there.

"The job market is not awful, but it isn't as buoyant as it once was. People who once had a selection of 10 jobs to choose from are now actually having to make an effort and get their skills up to date ... People aren't being forced to do it, but they think they might improve their prospects by going to university."

Pete Hodgson, Labour MP for Dunedin North and a former Minister for Tertiary Education, says people are more inclined to enter tertiary education during an economic downturn, "such as we are going through at the moment".

"And that is exactly the time to turn the tap on, not turn the tap off.

"Five years ago, New Zealand had skill shortages here, there and everywhere. Now the labour market has changed dramatically and the skill shortage issue has gone away, but it will return next time we get a decent upturn - unless we use the downtime in the economy to close that skills gap including, but not limited to, undergraduate bachelor study."

However, education consultant Dave Guerin issues a warning: "The other argument is that some people aren't there to up-skill; it's that they haven't got anything else to do. And is what they are learning necessarily going to align with their skill needs?

"You would expect to see an upsurge in a recession as we have done, but that doesn't mean you want to gear up your system to take 5% or 10% more students over time, because once the labour market picks up that demand is going to decline and you are going to be left with excess staff and space and everything else."