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Federal restructure
Federation Uni to downsize , offer redundancies to all permanent staff .
By Conor Burke
Federation University in Victoria has decided to cut the number of its schools by half and offer redundancies to all permanent staff , as reported by The Age .
Staff were told about the restructuring in late November and were given until January 7 to apply for redundancy . The university ’ s six academic schools will be abolished and three “ interdisciplinary employment and start-up centres ” will take their place , while senior academic roles such as Dean and assistant Dean will be replaced with “ CEOs ” – according to the National Tertiary Education Union .
“ We ’ re extremely concerned about the impact of cuts on staff and the quality of regional education ,” said NTEU Federation University Branch President Dr Mathew Abbott .
“ Our university ’ s programs have already been cut to the bone , including a third of humanities staff who are being made redundant .
“ This includes a full Professor of History at Gippsland , the only senior historian on campus and serving that area .”
The move comes as Fed Uni suffered a reported 37 per cent fall in student numbers between 2019 and 2022 , with huge losses forecast in science , engineering and IT , and at its business school .
It also suffered a $ 69.5 million downturn last year . The university posted a $ 3.9 million surplus in 2020 , while a report by academics at the University of Melbourne shows that the uni was reliant on fee-paying students for 42 per cent of its income last year , but saw a 24.4 per cent downturn in fee-based revenue .
Abbott told Campus Review that staff have not been given an idea of how many roles the university wants to cut , but for the 1280 full-time equivalent staff currently employed by the university there was a great deal of uncertainty and “ a lot of stress and anxiety ” from the announcement and through January .
Staff should be given an idea of how many roles need to be cut before they are asked to make a decision on redundancy , Abbott said , to see if Fed Uni ends up “ like La Trobe ” with lots of job losses , or whether it is essentially just “ a rebranding ”.
Abbott believes that the proposal will have a significant impact on students and do damage to regional Victoria .
It ’ s a high risk strategy that could do irreparable damage to education in the regions .
“ Changes to management structures need to be invested in teaching capacity and high quality face-to-face learning ,” he said
“ Instead , the proposal includes universitywide redundancies at teaching level , which will likely exacerbate existing problems and alienate students even further .
“ It ’ s a high risk strategy that could do irreparable damage to education in the regions .”
NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes said the news was further evidence of the “ wholesale job destruction of Australian universities ”.
“ It comes after a year where 35,000 workers at public universities lost their jobs ,” she said .
“ From the proposal , it is unclear whether this is a cosmetic rebranding or an attempt to change the way tertiary education is delivered at Federation University .
“ The consequence of job losses is increased workloads and less support for staff and students .” ■
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