Long-held concerns about the effect of
the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) on public tertiary education
were heightened by the release of information from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Trade (MFAT) on Friday.
Dr Bill Rosenberg, National President of
the Association of University Staff [AUS] said that least one country, thought
to be the USA, has asked New Zealand to open up its entire tertiary and adult
education sectors to foreign competition as part of the GATS agreement.
Dr Rosenberg said that, if accepted, this
would include access to subsidies and limits on the ability of our government
in its wish to regulate the sector. “It would accelerate commercialization and
widen leakage of scarce public funds to private and international companies,”
he said.
New Zealand, for its part, has asked
other countries to open up their entire education sectors to foreign
competition.
Dr Rosenberg today accused the New
Zealand Government of putting the university sector, and public tertiary
education generally, into an extraordinarily exposed position.
“Although it has proposed guiding
principles for the liberalization offers it intends to make in New Zealand, it
appears to disregard those principles in the requests it has made of other
countries. It is effectively saying to other countries: we expect you to do
what we won’t do at home”.
Dr Rosenberg says that AUS is most
disturbed that the government has given away any moral high ground in
protecting public education by its requests of other countries.
AUS shares the concern of the New Zealand
Council of Trade Unions [NZCTU] at the extensive requests made of New Zealand,
and joins calls for a substantial extension of time beyond the 28 February
deadline for comments to MFAT, and the 31 March deadline for New Zealand’s
initial GATS offer to the WTO, to allow proper public debate. AUS will be
joining other unions and organizations in a day of action against public
services being included in the GATS, on 13 March.
Dr Bill Rosenberg
National President
Association of University Staff