EIGHTY-SIX per cent of students are fed up with trimesters at the University of New England.
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A report, conducted earlier this year by the UNE Student Association, queried 1154 students and found the majority were unhappy with the three session per year model.
Law and Criminology student Hayden Gray said he had to drop from four courses to one in his first year – just to keep up with the curriculum.
“It is a big student issue,” he told The Express on Tuesday.
“If 86 per cent are saying ‘we don’t want trimesters’, that’s something that should be addressed.
“In fact, 30 per cent say they won’t study at UNE because of the trimester system.
“In the first year of law they teach us not to skip anything in the textbooks because you’ll be doing yourself and your community a disservice.
“But effectively the university is glossing over content and that will eventually disadvantage students.”
And it’s not just Mr Gray who has found it difficult to keep up with the pace.
Around 40 per cent of students surveyed said they didn’t have enough time to absorb content, with 40 per cent even dropping units.
“It’s [the workload] reducing academic integrity of the university, especially when it comes to subjects like law and nursing,” Mr Gray said.
“If we can push an entire nursing degree through in two years, that’s risky … we’re dealing with people’s lives here.”
Mr Gray said a small portion of his friends were happy with the trimester model.
“Some people like it because they can get their degree done faster,” he said.
If we can push an entire nursing degree through in two years, that’s risky … we’re dealing with people’s lives here.
- Hayden Gray
“But they are the ones that don’t work, that live on campus and that have unlimited resources available to them.”
Another significant issue with the trimester model was the impact it had on the local economy, Mr Gray said.
“Two major issues are that retailers in Armidale rely on student income and employers don’t want to hire someone who’ll only be here for eight weeks at a time,” he said.
“That disadvantages the local economy as well as students whose employment opportunities are reduced. It also creates a fluctuating real estate environment.
“I know a lot of people who sacrifice going home at Christmas and Easter just so they can keep a job.”
The UNESA report suggests altering the trimester model could be a solution.
Fifty per cent of respondents supported the suggestion of a system whereby trimester 1 and 2 are longer, with a shortened more intensive trimester 3.
Trimester 3 would be available for students who wish to fast tract their degree, summer school style.
But Mr Gray said the option had flaws.
“There’s been discussions about extending trimester 1 and 2 to almost semester timelines and shortening trimester 3,” Mr Gray said.
“I don’t see that as being a viable option given that we’re already suffering under the current trimester time period.
“If they were to reduce trimester 3 that doesn’t seem beneficial.
“The majority of students don’t actually study over trimester 3, it is a very difficult time of year and the majority of the content is offered online.
“I haven’t actually taken a unit in trimester 3 that has been available on campus.”
Mr Gray said he believed trimesters were here to stay, but that something needed to be figured out within university management to mitigate the negative impacts on teaching and learning.
“We need to figure out how we can increase the positive effects of it [the model] for both students and academics,” he said.
And it’s not just students pushing for a change.
EARLIER:
Staff at the University of New England want to abolish trimesters, the National Tertiary Education Union says.
Efforts to revoke the model, introduced in 2012, are ramping up with the first meeting kicking off a bargaining process between UNE management and the union held on Monday.
“Those bargaining teams will get together and negotiate back and forth,” NTEU New England Branch President Margaret Sims told The Express.
“Our current agreement expires later this year and we have to bargain for a new agreement.
“We have spent quite a lot of time consulting with our members across all schools about the issues that really concern them and those that they want us to fight for.
“What came up unanimously in all of our meetings was concern around the trimesters.”
Ms Sims said there was serious concern among staff over the impacts trimesters were having on teaching and learning.
“As far as our members are concerned they [trimesters] are not working for staff or students,” she said.
“We’ve been asked by our members to make that the primary focus for our local claims.”
Union Branch Vice-President Kelvin McQueen dubbed trimesters as “one of the biggest disasters ever perpetrated on UNE and on the town of Armidale”.
A spokesperson from UNE said trimesters were introduced in response to student demand for degrees to be more flexible.
“There are pockets of stagnant culture that are slow to adapt to change,” the spokesperson said.
“The vast majority of UNE's students juggle study with other life commitment such as family and career.
“The trimester system allows students greater flexibility to do that.”