Off The Hook

A fixture in a university classroom close to kuaka's current location. Seldom used for their proper purpose - hand & foot holds for student rock wall climbing? - one wonders why the expense? Aside from the occasional professor dangling from a couple of pegs - fortunately, not hanging - it seems there's not much call these days for student coats & bags to be stowed. Perhaps that's a very elementary or primary school notion anyway. At least, I think I've now got it pegged... [groans all round].

Someone was very bored if he had occasion to take this photo...

New Zealand Universities Place on World 500 List

Five of New Zealand’s eight universities - Auckland, Otago, Canterbury, Massey and Victoria - have placed on Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s annual list of the top 500 universities in the world.

New Zealand ranked first in terms of value for money, being able to produce top universities at a rate of 25 top institutions per 1% of global GDP compared to Britain’s 8.57 and the United States’ 5.5.

New Zealand is second only to Sweden on a per head of population basis in producing top universities on the list.

New Zealand Union of Students' Associations co-president Paul Falloon is reported as observing that: "It's pretty good to know that, just like Olympic medals, we are able to punch above our weight." But he also questioned how sustainable these achievements might be in the resource-constrained university system.