Hon Bill English
National Party Education Spokesman

9 April 2006

NZQA in financial trouble

The NZQA faces a financial crisis as it tries to rebuild after last year’s NCEA shambles, says National’s Education spokesman Bill English.

“Figures released by the NZQA show it ran up an $8 million deficit between 1 July last year and the end of January this year on a total budget of $52 million.

“There is no way it NZQA can claw back the $8 million shortfall in the last five months of the financial year, so Labour will have to either bale the organization out or subject it to another round of restructuring and redundancies.

“NZQA is blaming the new deficit on its overestimation of the number of foreign fee-paying students sitting NCEA.

“Clearly NZQA did not expect such a big drop in foreign students, however I suspect these figures also show significant numbers of secondary students are not sitting NCEA and won’t until it’s fixed.

“NZQA’s financial problems show they are out of touch with the realities of the foreign student market and perceptions of NCEA,”says Mr English.

ENDS

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