A meeting between Education Minister Chris Hipkins, the chief executives of New Zealand’s 16 institutes of technology and polytechnics (ITPs) and representatives from the Tertiary Education Union (TEU), Tertiary Education Commission and other sector agencies was held at Manukau Institute of Technology’s campus last Friday. The all-day meeting called, “Voices from Tertiary Education” was planned as a forum to discuss the future of vocational education and training in New Zealand.
Several executives and lecturers from Unitec attended, including our interim CEO, Alastair Carruthers; Executive Director – Partnerships, David Glover; and Nick Sheppard, Dean of our Bridgepoint and Te Miro pathways.
The meeting was intended to mark the start of a conversation between the Government and publicly funded vocational educators about how to structure the sector for the future, particularly in the light of falling enrolments.
David Glover said: “A wide range of issues and opportunities for ITPs were discussed, and as the largest ITP, Unitec is, of course, very interested in continuing to be part of the conversation.”
TEU’s Unitec President, Wei Loo said: “It was great to have TEU members, the president of the NZ student union, CEs of the major polytechnics, the head of the TEC, and representatives of the various industry training organisations all in the same room to agree on a change of direction for vocational tertiary education. By the end of the day it can safely be said that we all agreed that public education should first and foremost serve the public good and be student centered.”
The Minister also used the meeting to announce an end to contestable funding 1-4 from 2019, which is the Student Achievement Component (SAC) funding that tertiary education providers need to bid for against each other.
Gus Gilmore from MIT gave a long interview to RNZ and said that the ITP sector welcomed the conversation about how ITPs could continue to improve vocational education.
Media coverage of the event and announcements:
RNZ – Polytechnic mergers not ruled out – Hipkins
RNZ interview with Gus Gilmore – Polytech crisis ‘a perfect storm’
TEC: – Competitive SAC funding to be stopped
TVNZ – 1 News at Six
Maori Television – Govt acts as polytechs face ‘financial crisis’