10 June 2024
More polytech ‘upheaval’ to restore autonomy – Simmonds
Repairing the “massive damage’’ of the Te Pūkenga polytechnic centralisation reforms will require “more upheaval – and that will be disconcerting’’, Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds has acknowledged.
“But I’m adamant we have to get it right,’’ she said.
Under the reform model she would put to Cabinet by the end of the month, funding would be used as a tool to incentivise the sector to engage strongly with local communities.
If cleared by Cabinet, the model would be circulated for nationwide consultation.
It was time for communities to take back ownership of their polytechnics and their training needs, Simmonds told a Southland Business Chamber meeting on June 7.
The 2020 merger of 16 polytechnics and nine Industry Training Organisations to create Te Pūkenga had led to budget blowouts, poor student satisfaction, low staff morale, and expensive and ineffective head office bureaucracy, she said.
The polytech sector last year ran at an $188m deficit. “It’s a big financial mess and there’s no other way to describe it.”
Simmonds said she could not go into details of the draft model: “It’s a couple of weeks too early.” But she confirmed that damage caused by the previous reforms was such that “there won’t be 16 polytechnics going back’’.
As an indication of the complexity of changes needed, she said the Parliamentary Counsel Office, which drafted law, had called the legislation that had brought Te Pūkenga into place the most complex that it had carried out for the previous Government.
In the meantime Te Pūkenga was being wound down, significantly pulling back on its decision-making, delegating more, and returning staff to the regions.
It was really important that institutions like the Southern Institute of Technology had a clear future direction, Simmonds said.
They needed to be responsive to local business and community needs, and free from the controls of a head office at the other end of the country.
When Te Pūkenga had come together its task, first and foremost, should have been to identify and address financial issues, Simmonds said.
Instead, it had started working and spending on the likes of unified nursing degrees when the existing degrees were already perfectly good.
Simmonds, a former chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT), cited one squelching effect on its innovations; the use of augmented reality training goggles that had proven an “amazing’’ tool.
“Te Pūkenga in its wisdom decided that because all the other nursing schools in the polytechnics didn’t have it, the SIT couldn’t continue using it,’’ she said.
“And if you want the reason why I hate centralisation – that is it.
“It doesn’t allow innovation and good practice to develop. You push everything down to the lowest common denominator.’’
Source: The Southland Times – 10 June 2024