{"id":209849,"date":"2025-09-08T09:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/209849\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T09:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:25:09","slug":"green-light-for-job-cuts-at-uts-after-order-to-pause-restructure-lifted-australian-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/209849\/","title":{"rendered":"Green light for job cuts at UTS after order to pause restructure lifted | Australian universities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Technology Sydney will release its restructure proposal after SafeWork NSW lifted its order that the institution must pause job cuts<\/a> over the risk of \u201cserious and imminent risk of psychological harm\u201d to staff.<\/p>\n

Vice-chancellor Prof Andrew Parfitt, told a Senate inquiry into university governance the prohibition notice was removed on Friday afternoon after work with health and safety representatives.<\/p>\n

Last week, UTS halted its restructure after a rare intervention by the government body, leading to the cancellation of meetings with hundreds of staff and the deferment of the proposal\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

Parfitt told the inquiry he recognised it was a \u201cstressful time\u201d for staff and future meetings would be arranged on Monday to consult on the changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re balancing two stressful circumstances: the stress of people who want to know what the proposal is so that they can engage in a conversation around it, and the stress of those who are potentially uncertain about the process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we engaged with the SafeWork inspector on Friday to adjust the timing and the nature of the communication \u2026 We had thought that we had adequate provisions in place, but the SafeWork inspector thought otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Academics at UTS have described feelings of stress and a \u201cculture of fear\u201d<\/a> after the university temporarily paused student enrolments<\/a> for 120 of its 615 courses until the end of the autumn 2026 semester, including master\u2019s degrees in primary and secondary teaching<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It followed an announcement late last year that about 400 jobs would be lost to deliver $100m in annual savings.<\/p>\n

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) has also been investigating UTS since last month as a result of the suspension of enrolments.<\/p>\n

Parfitt said senior staff will not be paid any bonuses, saving about $2.5m in costs. He also confirmed UTS had spent $44m on consultants last year.<\/p>\n

The president of the UTS students\u2019 association, Mia Campbell, told the inquiry students were \u201cblindsided\u201d by management and felt \u201cabandoned\u201d by leadership.<\/p>\n

She refuted their claims that the changes would have no impact on current students, as many had lost the opportunity to study postgraduate options towards the end of their degrees.<\/p>\n

Campbell read out quotes from students in the school of public health, who said a week before the cuts were announced, they attended an honours information session with \u201chope and ambition\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were blindsided by news of the suspension of this program,\u201d the students wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many of us in public health, we chose to study this degree on the basis we would have a solid pathway to complete a bachelor, honours and PhD, but now we may not be able to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell said some PhD supervisors had already been made aware that they might have to supervise students for free if they were subject to job losses next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my classes I\u2019ve seen tutors and peers frustrated and demoralised by the uncertainty and loss of direction of the university,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany students are hearing bleak warnings from staff \u2026 I worry about how employers will interpret the value of my degree, considering UTS has decided to discontinue it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deputy vice-chancellor of UTS, Prof Kylie Readman, told the inquiry about 1,000 prospective students were expected to be affected by the pause. Of the suspended courses, she said 33 had fewer than 10 enrolments, and a further 31 had no students enrolled.<\/p>\n

Greens deputy leader and higher education spokesperson, senator Mehreen Faruqi, pressed Parfitt on \u201cfear and mistrust\u201d among staff to speak openly, who were instead resorting to \u201cclosed door meetings and encrypted WhatsApp groups\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said \u201cgenuine and open consultation around challenging issues needs to occur\u201d.<\/p>\n

Parfitt said universities in Australia were facing an \u201cunprecedented\u201d amount of pressure amid a \u201clong list\u201d of challenges, including financial constraint, wage underpayments and campus safety concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my 30 years in the sector \u2026 I have never witnessed such a confluence of challenges currently facing our institutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for SafeWork NSW said UTS had taken \u201cappropriate action\u201d to comply with the prohibition notice after it was issued due to \u201callegations of a risk of psychological harm\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSafeWork NSW is committed to supporting businesses in meeting their compliance obligations to provide a working environment that supports worker safety and wellbeing during all phases of business operations, including times of change,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Technology Sydney will release its restructure proposal after SafeWork NSW lifted its order that the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":209850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-209849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115167960977880801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}