Latest news with #VocationalEducationandTrainingSystem)AmendmentBill
NZ Herald
13-07-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
EMA urges collaboration for effective vocational education reform
EMA pushes for industry partnership in New Zealand vocational training reform. Photo / NZ Herald Opinion by Joanna Hall Joanna Hall is the Advocacy & Stakeholder Engagement Lead of Employers & Manufacturers Association (EMA). THE FACTS After years of sweeping reforms, financial pressures and structural upheaval, New Zealand's vocational education and training (VET) system stands at a critical crossroads. The Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill now before Parliament offers an opportunity to rebuild confidence, lift quality and finally deliver
Otago Daily Times
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Polytech bail-outs lie ahead, Te Pūkenga warns
PHOTO: ODT FILES Te Pūkenga's managers have warned MPs the government will have to bail out struggling polytechnics despite its reforms. Meanwhile, Nelson's mayor Nick Smith appealed to the government to save the region's polytechnic from inclusion in a federation of weak institutions. Appearing before the Education and Workforce Select Committee the mega-institute's chief financial officer James Smith said the changes, which included disestablishing Te Pūkenga, would leave in place a volume-based funding system. He said that would lead to the institutes making the same poor investment decisions that prompted the creation of Te Pūkenga as a means of ensuring their long-term viability. "The system remains a simplistic, inefficient volumetric system with no ability to adjust price based on scale. We expect that these issues will persist under the structural changes enabled under the bill. We also expect because of this that the government will be relied upon for further ad hoc financial support for ITPs (Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics) in the future," he said. Smith said "unhealthy race to the bottom behaviour" was likely to re-emerge and polytechnics needed stronger incentives to collaborate with one another. He said the government's Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill also watered down institutions' obligations to underserved learners such as Māori and Pacific communities. "This tempering of obligations, along with reductions in targeted funding for these learner groups from 2026 will maintain or worsen the current education disparities that exist in the tertiary education system," he said. Drew Mayhem from the Tertiary Education Union also cast doubt on the long-term viability of the government's plan. "Splitting out the work-based learning component and putting it in direct competition with the polytechnics that you're trying to stand alone, that's not sustainable," he said. Nelson mayor Nick Smith told the committee the creation of Te Pūkenga had been bad for the region's local polytechnic, the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT). He said his greatest fear was that NMIT would be among the former polytechnics placed into a federation rather than being allowed to stand-alone after Te Pūkenga was disestablished. Smith said he had heard that NMIT was "on the margins" of inclusion in the federation and wanted government to consult with mayors and iwi before making that decision. He said he was not expecting NMIT would emerge with all of the $20 million in cash reserves that it took into Te Pūkenga, but understood about $9m remained. Smith said that money should be transferred to the re-established institution.
Scoop
10-07-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Relevant Skills In Short Supply
Legislation aimed at improving NZ's vocational education and training system needs to focus on delivering the right skills needed for business and employment growth, BusinessNZ says. BusinessNZ says New Zealand's new vocational education system should not be dominated by polytechnics to the detriment of work-based training and should focus on delivering better-skilled graduates who are more likely to get a job. BusinessNZ's submission to the Education & Workforce Select Committee on the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill says many of the skills that people currently get trained in are not the skills needed by business, and this is holding back graduates from successfully gaining employment - an industry-led, government-enabled vocational system for setting standards is required, to allow for more relevant, up-to-date skills to be taught. The Bill also allows for a training levy to be imposed on businesses, however BusinessNZ says its members strongly oppose this provision, as they believe the system first requires significant improvement to achieve the business and employment outcomes required from vocational training.
Scoop
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Supported Learners Carry The Burden Of Minister's Delusion
Minister of Vocational Education Penny Simmonds told the Education and Workforce Select Committee yesterday that she thinks most polytechnics are overstaffed, describing what she considers high staffing levels as 'abysmal'. Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union is pointing to cuts currently proposed to educational opportunities for supported learners as a prime example of the human cost of her delusion. Weltec and Whitieria are proposing to disestablish both of their existing Level 1 Certificates in Skills for Living; and Skills for Learning and Working for Supported Learners. Along with the four full time equivalent staff members, the greater Wellington region will lose the only programmes of this kind for learners with disabilities if the proposal goes ahead. Kaiwhakahaere | Organiser Drew Mayhem says 'there is considerable demand for both these programmes within the community. Student numbers have not decreased. These cuts are purely due to the government's inability and unwillingness to provide a level of baseline funding that will avoid further contraction of the sector before it is in a permanent death spiral.' Te Pou Ahurei | National Secretary Sandra Grey says 'the Minister uses an 18:1 student/staff ratio as a blunt instrument to measure viability but this misses the point of why we need polytechnics. If 12 disabled young people want to gain work skills in Porirua, why wouldn't we fund that? By her reckoning those 12 young people miss out on the future they deserve and 12 businesses miss out on great workers.' 'Furthermore, the Minister's Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill, if passed, will only further destabilise the provision of vocational education, as the bill provides no clarity on what the future of the sector looks like beyond closures and possible privatisation. New Zealanders deserve better. They were promised regional autonomy but instead are having our tertiary providers hollowed out from within.' To have your say on the Bill, click here for the TEU's submission guide, and here to make your submission by midnight tonight.
Otago Daily Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Simmonds taking charge as Te Pukenga gets whacked
Vendetta is the Italian word for "revenge", and it was used quite a lot by Labour in the House on Tuesday. No, not because its MPs were complaining about the National Party's views of Te Pati Maori (which they were), but because they were complaining about that well-known political mafiosi, Invercargill National MP Penny Simmonds. Now, Ms Simmonds has not got a bitter bone in her body, but so far as Labour was concerned, as she got to her feet to begin the work she has been preparing for for many months — the dismantling of Te Pukenga — Ms Simmonds was some sort of conglomeration of Vito Corleone, Tony Montana and Tony Soprano as she sought retribution for the perceived wrongs done to her. "This plan is Minister for Vocational Education Penny Simmonds' personal vendetta," Shanan Halbert thundered. "This is a terrible move from a minister with a vendetta, with no plan, no funding for vocational education," Rachel Boyack said. Ginny Anderson's contribution was somewhat less on the nose — she accused Ms Simmonds of having "a singular purpose" — but you know that she meant the "V" word. So, what was Labour getting so steamed up with Ms Simmonds about? The Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill basically undoes a huge chunk of work which Labour had done while it was in government, to merge the country's various polytechnics into the mega Te Pukenga organisation. The mega merger was, you may recall, the work of one Chris Hipkins, a man of some prominence in Labour's ranks. The creation of Te Pūkenga had laudable aims, such as streamlining procedures and policies and reducing cost duplication. However, its critics — notably the former Southland Institute of Technology chief executive, one Penny Simmonds — claimed it stripped away local autonomy and punished successful polytechnics by using their better bottom lines to prop up less successful polytechnics. After a brutal gangland war otherwise known as the 2023 election, Don Luxon took control of the mean streets of New Zealand and Capo Simmonds was placed in charge of the vocational education sector, making the woman tasked with making Te Pukenga sleep with the fishes. If that be a vendetta, then so be it. "Te Pūkenga will be referred to as the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology and will remain as a transitional entity for a one-year period before being disestablished by 31 December, 2026, if not before," Ms Simmonds said. "Each polytechnic will be funded independently and will have local governance and management. For most, they will continue operating at their current campuses across the country. Some polytechnics will be established as stand-alone entities; others requiring additional support will be designated members of a federation or merged, with Cabinet considering their options later." And as for why Te Pūkenga had to be offed, Ms Simmonds slated it as being an expensive failure. "Its push to centralise and standardise polytechnics and work-based learning was wrong, and it cost this country dearly." Ms Simmonds will not have been surprised at the level of Labour's ire, although she may have been a touch dismayed given the considerable amount of praise her first salvo at vocational education reform, a revamp of work-based learning, received when it was announced in April. She harked back to those glory days, saying that those changes were just what apprentices, learners and industry had been calling for — decentralised vocational education with training based around the specific needs of industries. "It [the Bill as a whole is] for all those apprentices, trainees and employers involved in work-based learning who've struggled to get support from an overly bureaucratic and remote Te Pūkenga head office in Hamilton," she said. "This redesign is also for the communities up and down the country who've watched on in frustration as their local polytechnics have been stripped of local innovation and control." She probably got most people on side as soon as she mentioned Hamilton. A more measured assessment of the Bill came from Dunedin Green list MP Francisco Hernandez, who did not even come close to using the "V" word, but certainly raised several cogent objections to Ms Simmonds' proposals. "We have no philosophical objection to the idea that there could be thriving, independent vocational institutions; however, this legislation does not establish that," he said. "However, this disestablishment has been severely disruptive to the hundreds of staff around the country who've been let go; to the thousands more that have had to go through job consultations that have rescoped, descoped and unscoped their roles." Mr Hernandez further asserted that the reforms potentially opened a door for asset sales and privatisation. "It's asset sales and privatisation. That's absolutely what's going on. So, we would like to see guardrails against that," he said. "Let's have some support for thriving, independent polytechnics. Let's actually put our money where our mouth is by supporting funding for them and not disestablishing them." Speaking of scrapping things As foreshadowed last week, Parliament did indeed pass Southland National MP Joseph Mooney's novel notice of motion regarding legal training. To clarify, Mr Mooney sought to overturn a regulation that tikanga Maori be a compulsory component of all compulsory legal subjects. He had no objection to tikanga being taught, nor with the NZ Council of Legal Education having acted within its powers to make tikanga a standalone compulsory subject. However, he and the majority on the regulations review committee found that making tikanga a compulsory part of all compulsory subjects was "unusual and unexpected" and should be disallowed. So did a majority of the House, but not without a heap of scorn from the Opposition benches.
