Maurice Williamson National Tertiary Education Spokesperson

Tuesday 31 July 2001

TEAC - What happened on the way to the printer?

Something must have happened on the way to the printer. This can't be it, National's Tertiary Education spokesperson Maurice Williamson said today of the third TEAC report 'Shaping the Strategy'.

"At a time when a very good report has been released by the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering an appallingly bad report has been released by the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission on the strategy for our tertiary education system.

"Steve Maharey must have gutted the report because I find it very hard to believe that any academic would put their name to it.

"To publish a document that talks of a 'vision for a vision', 'characteristics of the vision for the vision' and of 'a desirability for a desire' is an insult to any trained academic mind.

"The report for all its pretentiousness, lacks academic rigour. It is an insipid document that will evoke embarrassment and scorn among New Zealanders.

"When the first TEAC report was released in July last year it was full of platitudes and generalities and most people had no idea what it meant. We've now got the third report, and its worse!

"The report reads more like an ecumenical statement put out by churches than a blueprint for how tertiary education can really advance the knowledge base and economic growth of New Zealand.

"At the very time when the Government should be adding some substance to the tertiary sector for the Knowledge Wave conference, they've released a blueprint to nowhere," Mr Williamson said.

Ends

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>