For the past 13 years, Nobbs has worked as a director of learning support and student development at Massey University and Auckland University of Technology.

But he said businesspeople rather than educationalists were now running universities.

"With big institutions, it's easy to talk about your values and much harder to live them."

He said he'd observed that a lot of the values universities upheld were box-ticking exercises.

"The tertiary situation is quite disappointing now. Academic education and universities used to be about creating critically-thinking citizens, but it's very much a business now.

"It's about getting people through education as quickly as possible."

He's been manager of Whanganui City Mission for three months now. Continue reading