UPDATED 5.23pm: More than 20 staff are to lose their jobs from Waikato University.

The redundancies will affect the Faculty of Education, which will lose 22 full-time equivalent jobs. Four new jobs will be established.

It’s understood up to nine staff members within the faculty had opted to retire this year, which had reduced the number of redundancies the university had originally considered.

The redundancies were revealed to affected staff this morning, with the wider university being informed at 2pm, the Herald understands.

The university also announced it had contracted out the Waikato Pathways College – Te Huanui to a private provider, with the potential of job losses there too. The college specialises in English language study for international students, and also offers further training for teachers.

One staff member who contacted the Herald said staff at the Pathways College – which also helps hundreds of students gain University Entrance through its Certificate of University Preparation – were “horrified” by the proposal that it could be ‘sold off’ to an international company focused on recruiting international students.

The new vice-chancellor, Professor Neil Quigley, was “wreaking havoc without even comprehending the depth of some our best educators who have been taken into redundancy talks”, the staff member, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

Professor Quigley was “perceived by many as having come from another place and doesn’t seem to understand or have a bond with our community”.

Staff were “terrified of losing our jobs”, and had been told not to talk to anyone about today’s announcement – “and some have been told not to talk to each other”.

Staff will be given the option to transfer over to the private contractor, but it’s not certain this option will be available for all jobs, the TEU said.

Professor Quigley told the Herald in a statement that a fall in enrolments in the Faculty of Education had driven a review of staffing.

“In contrast to the growth in student numbers in other parts of the university, enrolments in Education have declined for the past few years and the university has now reached the point where it cannot continue to absorb reductions in the revenue of the Faculty of Education without adjustments to staffing levels,” the statement said.

“Affected staff are being communicated and consulted with, and all staff across the faculty have been asked to provide feedback by the end of the month on the change proposal. It is proposed that 16.28 full-time equivalent staff are disestablished.”

Professor Quigley said the university was also  consulting with staff in the Pathways College. 

“Around the world, there are more than 1000 English-medium Foundation programmes, of which half are delivered by five private providers,” Professor Quigley says.

"The University of Waikato believes that management by a private provider will give the Pathways College access to a larger and more specialised network for the recruitment of students, the effectiveness of which will far exceed that of the existing recruitment channels managed by the university itself.

“The proposal is therefore designed to create a structure within which the university can substantially increase enrolments in its pathway programmes.”