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Canberra Today 13°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Union slags music school ‘lifeline’ plan

THE ACT Division of the National Tertiary Education Union has condemned today’s announcement by the ANU of a possible fund-raising consortium as a case of exploiting community goodwill. 

NTEU said it was “a useful distraction for ANU management in a disastrous week…when the dust settles [it] will be seen to be little more than an exercise to distract attention from its real plans to cut the School of Music”.

It has also condemned ANU management for failing to consult or even inform School of Music staff, students or the union on this latest attempt to rescue what has become a public relations disaster for the university.

ACT Division secretary of the NTEU, Stephen Darwin told “CityNews” that he had been unimpressed by both this announcement and reports earlier this week that the university had backed down on plans to spill all staff.

“Although staff and the union welcome any attempt to raise further funding for the fine work of the School of Music, ANU management have not abandoned their attempts to sack all staff and create a smaller number of new positions,” Mr Darwin said.

“Nothing at all has changed in this regard. The ANU has merely found a possible mechanism to offer more outsourced one-to-one instruction via an entity yet to be even funded, let alone created.”

Mr Darwin added reference to the university’s  suggestion that funds, if and when raised at soem time in the future, could be applied to the Personal Development Allowance in the proposed new School of Music curriculum.

He said the idea being floated of a symphony orchestra as an alternative source of instruction was flawed because any such orchestra would offer “a much narrower range of instructional options than that offered by the School of Music”.

Mr Darwin said the union planned to hold a mass meeting of members across ANU next Wednesday to consider future actions.

“No staff or students in the ANU School of Music has any more guarantees about their future today than they had yesterday,” he said.

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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