UTS Plan to Scrap Education

UTS has announced it would close its International Studies and Education – including all teacher training – and Public Health schools as a part of a plan to reduce the total number of schools from 24 to 15.

Under the proposal, the School of Professional Practice and Leadership would also be closed, and the major in Renewable Energy Engineering abolished.

It’s part of management’s plan to cancel 31% of all teaching, including 167 courses and 1,101 subjects and slashing up to 400 jobs.

NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes commented, “These unjustified cuts are part of a broader governance crisis in our universities that allows overpaid vice-chancellors to go after courses and jobs with no accountability to the communities they're meant to serve.

"What we're seeing at UTS is being replicated across the country: university executives pursuing reckless job cuts that tear at the fabric of public universities, while dismissing the expertise and concerns of their own staff.”

Despite the NTEU presenting viable alternatives to the cuts through extensive expert analysis, UTS management has ignored the majority of staff concerns and suggestions.

UTS was forced to pause its plan two weeks ago after an unprecedented intervention from SafeWork NSW, which found they were failing to manage serious psychosocial risks created by the rollout of these cuts.

NTEU NSW Division Secretary Vince Caughley says, “Let’s be clear: these are choices, not necessities. UTS recorded record income in 2024, staff costs are lower in real terms than in 2019, and their own modelling shows the university would return to surplus by 2029 without cuts. Yet the Vice-Chancellor and his executives are inflicting turmoil on staff simply to bring that surplus forward by two years, all while blowing $93 million on consultants in the last three years."

Image by Sardaka - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72090639