Polytechnics need a single voice

Media Release
27 August 2009
Polytechnics need a single voice

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs is disappointed to learn that Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics New Zealand Inc (ITPNZ) is splitting its advocacy and quality assurance work between two separate bodies.

ITPNZ announced this morning that it will focus solely on being a quality assurance body for the sector’s twenty institutes of technology and polytechnics (ITPs). It will rely on a new entity being established to advocate on behalf of those ITPs that want to belong to such a body.

Earlier this year six of ITPNZ’s twenty member bodies decided to leave ITPNZ, effectively undermining ITPNZ’s ability to represent the whole sector in a cohesive way.

“While it is good to hear that a national representative body will still exist to deal with quality assurance issues, the sector also needs a single national voice to speak on its behalf. We need a collaborative national network of polytechnics and institutes of technology” said Ms Riggs..“If ITPs revert to competing with each other rather than working together then students will lose out. Representative national advocacy bodies like ITPNZ are a good way to help that collaboration happen.”

ENDS

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