The Tertiary Education Commission (which is the government funding agency responsible for the tender process) has acknowledged that where two providers were equivalent in the tender on quality and other criteria, a final decision was made on the basis of price. The cost of closing down courses, paying redundancies and disposing of plant and equipment and other taxpayer-provided infrastructure has not been considered in the overall costs for the implementation of the policy. Therefore the real cost of the Minister’s ‘experiment’ is difficult to quantify.
Regional opportunities gone Once the minister and the commission announced the successful tenders, the unsuccessful polytechnics began the process to close courses, and a number of possible redundancies have already been announced. The range of course closures suggests that students in some communities will no longer be able to access the courses they want without moving to another centre or region. Table 3: Allocation of EFTs by region Region
EFTs allocation
Auckland
37%
Wellington
10%
Bay of Plenty
9%
Waikato
9%
National
8%
Northland
6%
Canterbury
5%
Taranaki
5%
Southland
4%
Gisborne
2%
Whanganui/Manawatu
2%
Hawkes Bay
1%
Otago
1%
Nelson/Tasman
0%
$38m 2013 = $6m 2012 =
Polytechnic funding for level 1-2
A cyclical contestable funding model limits the ability of providers to plan for their delivery in the longer term.
Contestable funding models also tend to have high compliance costs (for tendering, monitoring outcomes and so forth) that are seldom included in the real costs of implementing the model.
Polytechnic funding for level 1-2
Government funding has been shifted from its public institutions to private providers with price being the
final consideration in some cases. In many instances private providers (and Te Wānanga o Aotearoa) are able to compete on price because they pay their staff less and often have less infrastructure to support learning. Staff in these institutions are also less likely to have important employment conditions such as research and study leave and professional development leave, which contribute to ensuring learners have the best possible learning experience.
Students who need opportunities the most are having their opportunities limited (particularly those in communities outside of the main centres).
Good experienced staff from foundation programmes are losing their jobs – a personal loss for them, a financial cost to the institution, a likely loss
to their communities, as these people and their families leave to find employment elsewhere. Good teachers, tutors, support staff and lecturers should not lose their jobs because of short-term funding decisions that undermine our high quality sustainable public tertiary education system.
FOR MORE
INFORMATION
teu.ac.nz/level-1-2-funding teu@teu.ac.nz 0800 278 348