A shake up for Tertiary!
“It is about a two on the Richter scale in terms of damage done, but about an eight in terms of how it will have some
ITP councils and managements moving,” Lloyd Woods the National President of ASTE Te Hau Takitini o Aotearoa, the
professional association and union for staff in the ITP sector said today. He made these comments following the
announcements from the Minister regarding changes to ITP funding including the problematic areas of community education.
“The changes today will stop the continuation of low quality courses and programmes designed mainly as ‘cash cows’ to
make up for funding deficits. These in turn have led to funding blowouts. This is obviously good news for our members
who want to concentrate on high quality relevant provision” Mr Woods added.
“But even better news is the development of the Quality Reinvestment Fund which puts savings back into the sector to
help institutions that have problems with economies of scale due to their location and other factors such as small
classes. ASTE has been saying for many years that funding of this sort is required. It is great to see the Minister
taking these concerns on board and sorting them out. This funding is just a start in the process of reinvestment that
has been long overdue in this sector,” he said.
“Further funding for modern apprenticeships and fairer funding arrangements for ACE providers are also good news. It is
great to see this happening” Mr Woods concluded.