League table ranks Waiariki Institute of Technology 2012 performance
Latest Government statistics have confirmed Waiariki Institute of Technology is among the fastest improving tertiary
providers in New Zealand.
Minister of Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce has welcomed the release of the 2012 Education
Performance Indicators this week, which show continued strong performance by tertiary providers for their students.
“The changes we have made to the tertiary education sector to reward performance, instead of just getting “bums on
seats”, are continuing to work,” Mr Joyce said in a press release. “More students are staying in study, achieving
credits and qualifications, and progressing further.”
The data shows Waiariki has improved in both successful course completion, successful qualification completion and
number of students retained through the Educational Performance Indicators (EPI) that the Government uses to assess
tertiary providers that receive student achievement component (SAC) funding against.
Waiariki Chief Executive Professor Margaret Noble said she was very proud of the 2012 results which confirm more
students are continuing to successfully gain quality education across the Waiariki region which emphasise the continuous
improvement in theses areas at Waiariki since 2008.
“We focus heavily on our wide and diverse region with delivery of our programmes in Rotorua and in Taupo, Turangi,
Tokoroa, Kawerau, Whakatane and Tauranga, this allows us to offer quality educational opportunities to many who want to
remain and study in those areas,” says Professor Noble.
“Improving student success on the courses and qualifications we offer is is a big driver for us and the challenge
remains to continue this trend in coming years so that more highly skilled and work ready graduates are produced for
local, regional, national and where possible international workforces.”
With a shift of 4% on the previous year, Waiariki (77% in 2012) has now moved 27% upwards in successful course
completion during the last three years. The overall sector improvement during this period was just 9%.
The majority of the ITP sector continues to improve in the area of course completion with 16 of 18 organisations
achieving between 77-83% course completion in 2012. The overall sector improvement figure has slowed to 1% during 2012
compared to 4% improvement across the country in 2011 and 2010.
Waiariki has made great strides in the qualification completion achieved by its SAC government funded students with a
21% improvement during the 2009-12 period; following a confirmed 13% (55-68%) improvement during 2012 that lifted the
institute from 17th of the 18 institutes to 12th. The proportion of Students retained in study rose to 63% compared to
54% in 2011.
ENDS