Hon Steve Maharey
Minister of Social Services and Employment
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)
Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector
MP for Palmerston North
02 February 2000
NZQA’s years of indecision over
The new Government is clear about the future role it envisages for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), the
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education), Steve Maharey, said today when releasing its post-election
briefing papers.
Mr Maharey said the Government would work closely with the Authority to ensure it was able to carry out its
responsibilities. NZQA has existed in a policy vacuum for several years. Successive former Ministers went through
elaborate consultation exercises on the future role of the Authority but then failed to implement any changes.
“This Government sees NZQA as the sole guardian of the national qualifications framework and the registration body which
enables tertiary providers to gain access to public funding. We do not intend to establish the Quality Assurance Agency
of New Zealand (QAANZ), mooted in the 1998 tertiary white paper, because we do not believe a separate agency is
necessary or helpful when developing a seamless national system of qualifications.
“The Government wants to build a quality culture in the tertiary sector where we as co-funders, the institutions as
providers, and learners are all involved in a drive to achieve excellence. We see NZQA as having the key role to play as
the guardian of the national qualifications framework.
“The last Labour Government established NZQA because it was committed to fostering the culture of lifelong learning
which is so important in toady’s knowledge society. National allowed the Authority to become distracted by a focus on
process and more recently it proposed that competition should be introduced into qualification validation”, Steve
Maharey said.