C E Chipping Reports

CE E CHIPPING

SIX administrators to every 10 teachers in the Polytechnic?

If David Bartlett and Treasury are looking for areas in the state finances that are a bit fat with excess cash and which won’t get a voter backlash if cut, they have no need to look any further than the new Polytechnic. Following on from the tradition of TAFE which had a teacher to administrator ration of 563 teachers to 334 administrators or 6 administrators for every 10 teachers (2006-07 TAFE annual report) the new Polytechnic appears to have maintained a similar ratio if the new administration structure is anything to go by! Below are 5 figures that were sent out to Polytechnic staff to try to explain the administration structure (they keep sending out newer versions). Lots and lots of coloured shapes, with each shape containing one or more managers. Notice also that on the first diagram very faintly can be seen the word “STUDENTS” which is hidden by all the other shapes. Clearly students are not an obvious priority in the Polytechnic! Yes all those boxes are full of administrators not teachers; teachers don’t even rate a mention in the structure.

On another point it now appears that the old TAFE claim of 36000 students (the last couple of TAFE annual reports) turns out to be a very big white lie, the true figure (in active full-time equivalent) for the Polytechnic seems much closer to a the 3000-5000 mark although the old TAFE data system, which the Polytechnic uses, makes it very difficult to identify active students and it has therefore been difficult to count. It seems TAFE never actually needed to know how many students it had at any time in the past. Perhaps students just got in the way of a very efficient administration. Very “Yes Minister” like isn’t it?