THE UNIVERSITY of Ballarat says it will give ‘‘as muchnotice as possible’’ to staff who do not have their contracts renewed.The university last month announced a package of measures, including voluntary redundancy offers, to deal with decreased revenue from international students and demand-driven government funding.The university’s vice-chancellor Professor David Battersby told a meeting of School of Business staff lastweek that some staff whose contracts expired before theend of the year would have them renewed.Academic staff on contracts, in particular, were concerned they might not have enough time to get jobsat other universities.Asked at the meeting if six months’ notice would be given to affected staff, Professor Battersby is thoughtto have said that it would. But yesterday Professor Battersby said the university’scollective bargaining agreement required that only two weeks’ notice be given and his comments had been taken out of context.‘‘I did make mention of six months but it was in thecontext that if we were able to do that we would, not that we would change the collective agreement to do that,’’ Professor Battersby said.‘‘As far as possible we will try to give staff as much notice as possible . . . we will try to honour the spirit andthe letter of the agreement.’’He said 360 staff at the university were employed on fixed-term contracts.National Tertiary Education Union Ballarat branch president Jeremy Smith said the union would write to the university to ensure the vice-chancellor’s commitment was met.He said academic staff would be hit hard if adequatenotice was not given.‘‘There are limited employment opportunities for academics outside of Australian universities,’’ Dr Smith said.‘‘Also, for people living in Ballarat working (at UB) or Aquinas, there are no other university employers in town.’’