The University of Canberra (UC) will cut at least 200 jobs as part of an “urgent and significant” cost-saving overhaul.
In a statement, vice-chancellor Stephen Parker said the university needed to save about $50 million in recurrent expenditure by the end of next year, which would “affect all levels of the institution”.
Those savings are expected to include at least 200 staffing positions from the university’s five faculties by mid-next year, Professor Parker said, with “redundancies inevitable”.
He said “probably the majority” of the savings would come from staff cuts, but said he would not propose any member of staff forgo a pay rise.
And while recent government policy changes regarding international students have impacted funding, Professor Parker said the university was “spending beyond its means”.
“The university itself is responsible for this unsustainable position,” he said.
“We cannot expect any external assistance and must take urgent and significant measures to re-balance the institution.
“There is no point in blaming others.”
Earlier this month the Australian National University (ANU) announced it needed to make $250 million in savings by the end of 2025 as part of a major restructure which would lead to a “smaller university”.
The ANU is proposing cuts to operational costs, jobs and salaries, and last week asked staff to forgo an agreed pay rise.
Students assured of ‘bright future’
Professor Parker said UC was “sustainable on its current funding levels” if managed “prudently”, and that cost-saving measures were already underway, including reducing the senior executive and cutting senior manager roles.
“It is a complex task to be performed in a short space of time and as consultatively as possible,” he said.
Stephen Parker expects at least 200 jobs will be cut by mid-next year. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
Professor Parker apologised “unreservedly” for needing to take such action and committed to consulting with students, staff and unions.
He said the university had a “bright future” ahead of it, and in an email to students, assured them that their education would be “protected”.
“In terms of student experience and delivery of your courses and units, you have my assurance that these will be safeguarded throughout the process,” he said.
“I’m ring-fencing anything that is student facing, or that’s to do with their experience or their education.”
‘Governance failure after governance failure’
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) UC branch president Craig Applegate said staff were “understandably shocked and anxious” by the news.
“In a cost-of-living crisis, many UC staff will head into the Christmas break not knowing whether they’ll have a job to come back to in the new year,” he said.
“This has huge ramifications for UC staff and their families.”
Lachlan Clohesy of the National Tertiary Education Union ACT division says staff feel they shouldn’t pay the price for the mismanagement of the university. (ABC News: Courtney Barrett Peters)
NTEU ACT division secretary Lachlan Clohesy said the issue showed the university sector as a whole needed more oversight over governance.
“We’re seeing this across the country – we’re seeing this now at ANU and we’re seeing it at UC, but it’s beyond the ACT universities – and the consequences are really deep, traumatic jobs cuts that affect the communities we live in,” he said.
“Really poor governance is at the root of all these problems, and that’s why we’re calling for a federal parliamentary inquiry.”
Dr Clohesy said he believed it was a situation created by the university’s senior executives, leaving staff frustrated they would bear the brunt of the cuts.
“Staff are frustrated, they don’t feel they should pay the price for the mismanagement of the university,” he said.
The union said UC had experienced “governance failure after governance failure” in recent years, and needed to explain why former vice-chancellor Paddy Nixon had received a salary increase before his sudden resignation, and why there had been a churn of interim replacements since.
Last month it was announced that federal Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten would retire from politics and take up the vice-chancellor position next year.
In the lead up to the ACT election, both Labor and the Greens committed to a governance review of the university.
The union is also calling on the federal government to hold an urgent parliamentary inquiry into university governance nationally, saying UC and the ANU’s problems aren’t isolated.