Thursday, July 21, 2005

Tertiary Tango

The recent changes announced to tertiary education funding are a good move.

By shifting funding from the low quality bums on seats courses that have proliferated in the tertiary sector over the past ten years, to high quality practical qualifications, the government has taken a decisive step away from the failed competitive model of the 1990s towards creating a system that is truly geared towards the needs of students and the community.

Given the systemically low funding that was doled out during the 1990s, and the imposition of a market model, it is in some respects difficult to blame many tertiary institutions for focussing on quantity over quality. For a number, that was the only way to survive the funding squeeze.

The government has been wanting to address this issue for a long time and has taken a number of steps such as placing a cap on the number of EFTS enrolments that institutions may take, reducing funding for "free" courses, and most significantly by setting up the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) to oversee the sector and ensure that funding is producing quality outcomes. It would have to be said that the recent changes are something of a recognition that TEC has not necessarily had the administrative teeth to really re-shape the sector along the lines that the government envisages.

Anyway, these changes are positive and should over time really encourage the development of a sector that is responsive to sommunity and industry needs. Rather than punish institutions as Bill English seems to be suggesting, the government is putting real investment in place to ensure that institutions focus on relevant, high quality (more expensive) courses as opposed to the infamous twilght golf example. In particular I was pleased to see that the new fund will be used to encourage an expansion of the Modern Apprenticeship scheme.

These are complex policy issues, and there is still a long way to go, but this in my view is good progress.

* I guess I should note by way of disclaimer that I am a Council member of Manukau Institute of Technology.

6 comments:

Cheezy said...

Yeah Michael... of what possible relevance can the performance of the National Party the last time they were in government be, in forecasting how they will perform if they're elected this year? (i'd better stop here, cos my sarcasm is starting to literally drip off the tongue onto my keyboard...)

Anonymous said...

Now come on, Cheezy, Don Brash shows absolutely no signs of allegiance to the thinking of Ruth Ruth Richardson or any other National figure of the 1990's....he's a centrist pussy-cat kind of figure.
I do believe he came in to Parliament with a view to twiddling his thumbs in Government and throwing in the odd benevolent tax cut giving those on $40 000 about three dollars a week and those on $100 000 a whole, whole lot more....
...leaving workers with absolutely no protection in the labour market, wholesale privatisation and the best health and education priced out of the reach of low to middle income earners - not his style AT ALL....

Cheezy said...

Now you're being sarcastic, Spooks. Come on girl, I'll lay off the irony if you will...

Michael Wood said...

Spooks, this is pretty lame really.

I've given my view on the recent changes, and attempted to explain it.

Your response barely rises to the level of petulance. If I'm such a naive moron then please take the opportunity to explain what you actually think about this issue.

Michael Wood said...

Ummm, so you agree with the changes then?

Michael Wood said...

Spooks this doesn't make any sense. On one hand you criticise institutions for adopting a market approach (ie; screwing down the cost of courses in a frantic scramble to achieve market share through volume), and now you say that this market driven model is what we should be aiming for...

You are also disingenuous in summarising my views. My post was simply pointing out that the market model is an inappropriate one for our tertiary education sector, because of the very problems that we both seem to agree on.

To suggest then that this means I "hate" business people, or am a communist is faceceous. I have no problem with trading businesses operating in a competitive marketplace, and have in fact operated a small business in the past.