Tertiary education in New Zealand is publicly funded through a system known as Equivalent Full Time Student (EFTS). Basically, the government gives money to a course on a per student basis, with the amount determined by the credits or points value of the course, how many learning hours there are, and what the equivalent is in full-time weeks. Different institutions add a fee on top of the EFTS funding for each student to pay… apparently to cover operating costs (or even make profit).
- Here’s how to work out an EFTS.
- Here’s an attempt to get the EFTS system explained in plain English.
I don’t yet know what dollar value 1 full EFTS is, but lets say its $10000.
If I run a course for 10 weeks at 5 hours per week, the EFTS value might work out to be something like .04 EFTS as it is less than a full time course.. if my guesstimate of 1 EFTS being $10000 is near right, then the funding available for one student doing my course would be .04 of that, or $400. How many students do I need to run my course on EFTS only? How much does it cost to run my course?
My course goes for 10 weeks, and requires a facilitator to commit 5 hours per week to run the course:
Facilitator: 50 hours at $50 per hour = $2500
It also needs promotion, a little printing material, and some administrative assistance:
Marketing and administration= $1000
And I need to ensure that there are learning support services available to people, such as access to Community Learning Centres, student support services, and library services (if ever the library gets with the times).
Student services levy = $500
My course is a distance learning course, meaning I don’t need to book rooms or use classroom equipment. I use freely available Internet services to conduct the course so I don’t need computer labs or IT services. So lets call it at this point:
The running cost for the course = $4000
So I need a minimum of 10 formally enrolled, EFTS bringing students to run the course. At $400 per student, this would bring in $4000 to the course. With 10 students, my course breaks even.A pretty lean ship, but afloat non-the-less…
If I can run this course on the EFTS funding only, then the course is effectively free to those 10 students, because I am not charging a student fee on top of the EFTS funding. If they formally enrol, I get .04 EFTS for each person.
Now how do we make it free for everyone?
If the 10 people are not having to pay a fee, then they won’t mind if other people do the course for free. I could accept 20, 30, 100 people into the course if I knew I could still run it for the $4000. As long as I have my minimum 10 people formally enrolled and bringing in that .04 EFTS each.
These 10 people must be New Zealanders. So once we have 10 New Zealanders enrolled, we can start the course and open it up for anyone else to participate. Anyone from anywhere, for free. From the New Zealand Government’s point of view, 10 New Zealanders are getting educated. From my point of view, 20, 30, 100 people are getting educated. If the Government take issue with tha idea, they could think of it this way: 20, 30 or 100 of these people are not New Zealanders, not only should this not matter because they have only paid for 10 NZers, but we now have 20, 30 even 100 international (and local) people engaging in New Zealand education which could well lead to future investment, migration or other international exchanges. I have witnessed this very thing emerging out of the Facilitating Online course for example.
If I can work out how to run a course on EFTS only, and then make that course openly available to anyone without it resulting in higher running costs, I would be making that course available for free to anyone in the world provided I had the minimum number of New Zealanders formally enrolled to start the course in the first place. The example budget I put here was based on 10 people… I wonder if the course was free whether we might not attract 15 New Zealanders and thus a little more funding. Could we invest that extra $1250 in staff training and resource development?
Obviously my course is designed to run on the smell of an oily rag, but I reckon there’s a few courses that could run more this way. Apart from the issues of getting teachers skilled up to run courses on oily rags, the concern is that this is political. I seem to be the only one trying to think of ways to make New Zealand education free for anyone, and that most people see EFTS as a subsidy rather than full funding. I’m sure there will be political blockages all over the place in this…
It seems that most people in the NZ tertiary education sector have become very comfortable with a user pays education system, to the point where an egalitarian system like in Scandinavian countries now seems very distant, and that 10 billion dollars in student debt is acceptable! Despite the fact that the managers and teachers behind this current education system are majority a generation who enjoyed access to free education when they were students – at a time when their generation swelled the demand significantly!
If we could do it then, why not now? We have technology that enables us to scale at little extra cost, we have just enough government funding there to be able to run a few courses at least, but is there a political will anywhere to set New Zealand education apart and make it free.. for everyone who wants it!
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December 11, 2008 at 3:39 pm
William Lucas
I remember the day (year 1980) when I was paid to attend Teachers College. University in the years prior to that cost a little, but I could afford it from my holiday job.
If the model as you envisage it went ahead, I suspect that the government would simply cut its funding. I don’t know how they arrive at their EFT figures, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the level was set according to a certain fraction – say two thirds – of what the total cost they estimate they think the course costs per person.
If ‘smell of an oily rag’ ingenuity proceeded, then wouldn’t they simply move the goalposts and redraw the line i.e. only provide two thirds of the newer and lower figure?
December 11, 2008 at 8:50 pm
leighblackall
Yes, I suspect they would William, because we have all so easily come to accept user pays education.. regardless of the obvious cost to both our education system and to our society as a whole. We need CEOs like ours using heavy words against cuts and lobbying other CEOs. We need the student and teacher unions representing the same voice, and we need to do more towards developing an expectation for free education. From what I can tell, the only group coming close to such a campaign is the student unions. They are not so much calling for free education (but I bet they would jump at it if they thought it was politically possible) they are simply calling for interest free student loans!
December 11, 2008 at 8:58 pm
leighblackall
In fact, Southern Institute of Technology and their Zero Fees effort would be good to consider. They manged to get their local businesses to sponsor the local training and education provider enough to cover the extra costs over the EFTS funding. Apparently the local businesses agreed that zero fee education would attract people to Southern Institute, which would have flow on effects for local business. My argument is that the same principle would apply nationally.. that a nationally free education system would attract international students to NZ (and investment etc) which would have a flow on effect to NZ business…
If this idea of SITs model scaling nationally is hard to swallow, then perhaps its easier to consider their model in other regions. I don’t think it would work for Dunedin because the University already attracts a lot of people.. but it would possibly work in other regions.. but why haven’t other regions tried it? Perhaps the market local for free education is already saturated by SIT.. or perhaps SIT has special people that make the initiative possible…
December 13, 2008 at 6:53 pm
leighblackall
Just found out that 1 EFTS might be worth more like $7000, which means either the course needs to run cheaper again, or it needs more students to run. I think it could run cheaper actually. I think we could reduce the facilitation to $2000, and the marketing to $500, meaning the course costs $3000 to run instead of $4000.
.04 of one EFTS at $7000 is $280. 10 students therefore would equal $2800. Close, but not close enough. We’ll need 11 students to run, or campaign for the EFTS in the course to be worth .05 rather than .04.
December 19, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Looking back on FOC08 « Learn Online
[…] As expected, a little over 15% of those initial expressions of interest saw the course through to the end. In some ways I found the open course was a little like busking. A crowd attracted a crowd, most people were passers by who were willing to show support for the effort. Very few stayed around for the full show, and understandably fewer were interested in paying a fee for formal services such as personal support, assessment and certified recognition. I’m now rethinking the financial model for the course, and am interested to see if I can work out a way to make it entirely free. […]
December 19, 2008 at 6:34 pm
leighblackall
Just watching the news.. new statistics.. 130 New Zealanders are leaving to live in Australia PER DAY!! Seems to me that internationally free education could be a good way of encouraging skilled migrants to New Zealand… And NZ could do a lot more highlight its points of difference to Australia.
December 19, 2008 at 6:45 pm
minhaaj
Great post. Its closer to my model of free education, open curriculum, less evaluative partiality (making evaluation objective and demonstrable instead of subjective and normative), and participatory. My research with corporate culture and Islamic human resource management has convinced me that a model based of economies of scales and collectivism has been implemented throughout the history in Islamic societies specifically and in societies based on Islamic laws and spirit of education e.g Scandinavian education system except for the high taxes part. Islam runs the system through a very judicious contribution called Zakat.
I am glad someone else has realized the practical means of implementing free education unlike greedy economists and profiteering gurus.
February 5, 2009 at 8:02 pm
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