ON CAMPUS
campusreview.com.au
Trimester troubles
Photo: Australian/Monique Harmer
Protests continue against UNSW’s calendar restructure.
By Kate Prendergast
I
re and disgruntlement have dogged UNSW’s decision to switch
to the trimester calendar ever since it was announced in 2016.
As the new structure was rolled out at the beginning of this year,
the Cancel Trimesters campaign – established by the UNSW Student
Representative Council Education Office – continued to push for
an overhaul.
Efforts have ramped up in the last few months, following the end
of the first term of the new calendar. Stickers have been printed,
organising meetings convened, testimonies of discontent propagated
over social media, vox pops filmed and guerrilla tactics rolled out.
A forum was held with staff and students in June to air grievances,
culminating in a rally later that month. Marching on the vice-
chancellor’s office, students chanted: “Ian Jacobs, get out! We know
what you’re all about: cuts, job losses, money for the bosses.”
The trimester system was introduced as a key component of
UNSW’s $3 billion 2025 Strategic Plan, which aims to transform the
university into a globally competitive institution in synchrony with
northern hemisphere giants.
Code-named UNSW3+, the model is based on the US quarter
system used by Stanford, UCLA and other American heavyweights.
It replaces the two 13-week semester system with three 10-week
terms and an optional five-week summer term.
Course load has been reconfigured, going from four courses over
two semesters, to 2–3 courses over three semesters.
It is touted by management as providing a learning system that
enriches students’ academic potential, global prospects and overall
wellbeing, enabling them to “tailor their university experience, take
advantage of industry and international opportunities, and achieve
life/study balance”. UNSW’s promotional material insists the new
calendar creates a lighter study load and greater flexibility.
Yet staff and students have been persistently critical of the
scheme – which, they argue, was foisted upon them with minimal
consultation. Rather than enhancing their agency and wellbeing,
students say it has led to a stressed-out cohort struggling against an
unwieldy timetable, with less time to prepare and to recuperate in
between assessments.
While the university extolled 20 per cent fewer scheduled contact
hours in term one as “providing more flexibility”, students lambasted
this claim. The adaptive shift to greater online content has also
been slammed for reducing students’ capacity for timely and
dialogue‑driven feedback, peer learning and engagement.
A survey conducted by the UNSW 2025 Strategy Office before the
trimester’s introduction noted 90 per cent of responses were critical
of the change (UNSW declined to release the survey’s full results).
The NTEU also refuses to be sold on the system, with the view that
the model is more about marketing than education.
“Despite glossy rhetoric from university management about the
importance of being ‘global’, the union feared this would become
a timetable for more privileged students who have considerable
parental support and don’t need to engage in paid work – the SRC
confirms this is now the reality,” the president of the union’s UNSW
branch, Sarah Gregson, told Campus Review.
“In the NTEU’s view, the trimesterisation strategy was always about
being ‘teaching intensive’ without proper consideration of the social,
financial and pedagogical risks for students and staff.”
Critics argue international students, which contribute to the
majority of student revenue for UNSW, are particularly affected. With
semester breaks shortened to two weeks, they are forced to weigh
up whether it’s worthwhile to return home – particularly if few of their
friends are going to be there at the same time. This affects regional
students too.
“When you catch flights home, rather than catching one flight
over the middle break, you have to catch two different flights for
each holiday,” said one student in a vox pop video posted on the
campaign’s Facebook page. “Which is a lot more expensive, and each
break is shorter, so it’s harder to enjoy it.”
Even if they chose to remain in Australia, some students report it is
now virtually impossible to get temporary work during this break.
Staff have also found themselves under increased pressure, with
union members alerting the NTEU to faster turnaround times and
heavier workloads. At the staff and students forum earlier this month,
one teacher described trimesters as a “horrific burden”.
“During the marking period, we’re given a one-week deadline mark.
I was given a three-day deadline to mark 102 papers,” they said before
a packed room. “I was told, as a casual, that if I did not finish marking
on time, they’ll outsource the marking and half of my payment will go
to someone else, and I won’t be able to pay rent that week.”
The campaigners are even attributing UNSW’s $14.2 million dive
in enrolments this year to frustration with the new calendar. Two-
hundred and seventy students dropped out before classes began in
term one, 575 dropped out in the first few weeks, and international
undergraduate commencements are down by 12 per cent. UNSW
is considering recovering its losses by lowering high school entry
standards and English requirements: a “below-the-radar approach is
recommended to protect reputation” according to UNSW strategy
meeting notes obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald.
UNSW is not the first Australian university to implement the tri-part
calendar, with Bond University, the University of Canberra, Charles
Darwin University, Charles Sturt University and CQUniversity already
operating on the model.
Deakin University introduced trimesters 10 years ago, with similar
backlash. And the University of New England brought in trimesters in
2012, which NTEU branch vice-president Kelvin McQueen described
as “one of the biggest disasters ever perpetrated on UNE and the
town of Armidale”. ■
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