Higher education

The current campaign to set up a medical school in Hamilton and the pending cuts to staff numbers at the University of Waikato exemplify three interlocking problems which beset how we go about deciding such matters in present day NZ. Current economic orthodoxy holds that when numbers drop below a certain point in a university course it indicates that its continuation suppresses the satisfaction of some more urgent client need. In this approach disciplinary coherence and continuity is traded off in order to satisfy the whimsy and fads of the moment. Those who wish to make universities into businesses are particularly attracted to this approach.

Closely associated with the foregoing is the widespread public perception that higher education is about entry to middle class comfort – not the acquisition of an inquiring intellect.

Finally, something must be done to bring to an end the utterly wasteful game of competition between our universities. The duplication, poaching and downright ill-will it has created is a national scandal that academics themselves must bear some responsibility for.

Dr Wayne Robinson

Hamilton

having to be controlled by police, I saw a young man, not acting aggressively in any way, apparently totally involved in using his iPhone to call for a taxi and at that particular time not being a physical threat to any person, let alone the police present. I then saw a police member rush at that young man and king-hit him to the ground. I say ‘‘king-hit’’ because at the stage it happened, he was preoccupied using his phone and did not even see the police person approaching. It is true that police can use ‘‘reasonable’’ force to subdue resistance or threat of violence, but that threat or resistance must be ‘‘present’’ at the time the force is used. It is irrelevant if bottles were thrown earlier or even if the youth with the phone was one throwing bottles. Even if there was such evidence and the police were to take the young man into custody, there was no justification for a surprise attack and extreme force at that time. If the police district commander has any integrity he will order a full inquiry into the incident, will not allow irrelevant ‘‘spin’’ to cloud the issue and will take any justifiable disciplinary measures indicated by a fair and frank analysis . . . complaint or no.

Dennis Pennefather

Te Awamutu

We’re told that NZ now has a balanced budget.

NZ had a balanced budget before the current administration came into government.

We’re not told that the current administration ballooned government debt from $17b to $62b without any improvement to government services.

In fact, funding has been reduced for social welfare, police and health.

The reduction in social welfare alone has contributed to an increase in ill health, poverty and death.

Tacit approval by the current administration in earlier years regarding housing mortgage rates resulted in approx 50,000 employees removed from the house building industry and this has never been corrected.

The current government is the worst I have ever seen here.

Heaven help NZ if Andrew Little fades into history. NZ will end up 20 years behind the times like we used to be.

George Garard

Hamilton