Polytech job cuts: 'The mood has changed from anger to sadness'

RNZ News

22-06-2025

About 300 jobs are under threat at eight polytechs, says the Tertiary Education Union. File photo.
Photo:
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Job and course cuts across the polytechnic sector are a nightmare, the Tertiary Education Union says.
The union estimates that about 300 jobs are under threat at eight of the 16 institutions, with restructuring plans expected shortly from two more.
The proposed cuts ranged from performing arts courses in Wellington to agriculture courses in Northland.
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sandra Grey said the institutes were doing what the government had told them to do.
"The directive from the government was really, really clear. It was cut, cut, cut until you're financially stable and there's a huge problem with that because when you cut staff numbers, you cut the number of courses, you cut the viability of the institutions. This is a nightmare," she said.
Grey said the scale of change was unprecedented.
"In any given week I can receive two or three change proposals. That's individual groups of staff being affected, individual courses that are being cut," she said.
"In the worst case scenario its almost one-in-five staff and that is massive for those communities as well because not only is that cutting courses for learners but that's taking money out of the local economy."
Whitiereia Polytechnic TEU branch president Helen Johnstone said she had never seen anything like it in her 20 years at the institute.
"We have had time and time again cuts across that period of time and lots of changes but for me this is the most significant that I have experienced. The most significant in terms of the impact on our particular polytechnic and what services and courses will be available and left for students."
Johnstone said staff seemed resigned to the changes.
"The mood has actually changed from anger to sadness," she said.
"We went along to a staff update meeting and the mood in the room was just silence. I think everybody's in shock... that this is actually happening."
Polytechnic and Te Pūkenga managers refused RNZ's request for an interview as did Vocational Education minister Penny Simmonds.
But former Otago Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker agreed the cuts were unprecedented.
He said polytechnics had been struggling to make ends meet for years, but they had not all cut courses and staff at the same time.
"This so-called viability issue has been around since I took up my chief executive job at Otago in 2004," he said.
"There's been all sorts of work put in place at an institutional level to try and survive for the last 20 years plus. So there's always been some staffing reviews and job churn but what we're seeing now is a whole lot happening at the same time."
Ker said the current round of cuts was aimed at creating financially-viable, stand-alone institutes but it would not work.
"They're standing up on the basis of severe short-term cuts. There isn't a strong under-pinning financial model," he said.
"These are all short-term fixes. It's looking for which programmes are the weak links right now, chop them out, shows a short-term benefit on the revenue statement and then a year down the track we'll see something else that's not 'viable' in inverted commas."
Ker said the fundamental problem was everyone wanted a polytechnic system but nobody wanted to pay for it, least of all the government.
"It's an inconvenient truth that we would like to have a really good vocational education system, but we don't want to pay for it. Employers don't want to pay directly for their training and the government doesn't want to pay adequately their share of the cost."
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