The news for tertiary education and students was all bad in the budget. I will do a specific post on the impact on students later, but I just wanted to address some of the headline effects of the budget on tertiary ed to start with.
There is about $99 million LESS going into the sector this year than last year. Say what? How is the economy going to get a “step change”, let alone the quantum leap we actually need, without investing in knowledge and skills?
The government will make much of the 1735 extra students they are funding in universities and the 3173 they are funding in polytechs. But these are not new students – they are simply funding the students already there whom the institutions are currently carrying as unfunded students. Steven Joyce says there will be 765 new students at universities. Divide that across 8 universities and you get fewer than 100 new students per university. Take the 455 new polytech students and divide them across the 20 polys – and you get 23 new students per polytech.
This simply won’t cut it. The government wants a step change to occur through science – who grows scientists? Universities and some polytechs, that’s who.
And don’t get me started on the cuts of $3.4 million to Adult and Community Education delivered through high schools. They only had about $3.3 million left last year………
Bleep me !
– What are all those turned away students supposed to do with their lives? Work at McDonalds? 
No Spud, you need at least a BA to get a job at McDonalds.
So 4900 odd students now get their education paid for instead of having to pay for it themselves.
David, where did you get that connection….4900 odd students now get their education paid for instead of paying for themselves ?????
Do you have the faintest idea how tertiary education works ???
These students pay the same as other ( NZ ) students before and after.
The government has just moved its numbers ” It funds” to match the numbers that were enrolled ( but paid for by the university)
I work 35 – 60 hours per week in 2 jobs. Im sort of an at home dad during the less hour weeks, Im doing 1 paper a semester at polytech and acheiving good marks.
It looks likeley that some of us part time students will be unviable to polytechs to sustain due to the cuts so irrelevant of the marks I will be one of the first to be let go.
I dont have a student loan (I can afford the fees and texts books lukily), I pay taxes (dont get me started on secondary tax), In one of my Jobs I bring in income from overseas, so I am productive.
What exactly did I do to NACT to deserve this budget????
A Mother asks for clarification on loss of support if failing papers. That could add pressure on part time students.
By the way a quantum (plural: quanta) is the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in an interaction. An opposite meaning?
National has never been fond of universities in particular and tertiary provision in general – too intellectual, perhaps, and a sector requiring a medium to long-term vision. There is, for example, a staffing problem looming in the sector (retirements, global competition for skilll, better-paid jobs in NZ etc). Every time we cut back therein, we tell people that it’s not a sensible career choice, and we exacerbate that problem. Unfortunately, when the chickens roost, it will be too late.
@ David – GWW is absolutely right. It makes no difference to students. The institutions get more funding, that’s all. It lessens their liability for unfunded students. But I’d bet my tax cut that there are more than 970 (1735 – 765 new places) unfunded students in our universities right now. That’s just the number the government has chosen to fund.
@ Waterboy – fortunately, the institutions are funded by EFTS, not heads, so theoretically there shouldn’t be any disadvantage to part-time students. So – keep up the good work but watch this space.
Tertiary education spending comes straight from the pay packets of electricians, taxi drivers, plumbers, refuse collectors and sales assistants etc. These people work long hours and have been overtaxed for years. They want to know that the government uses their tax money carefully. The actual sum of money spent is less important than that it is spent wisely. How can you possibly complain about funding 4900 more students to have the opportunity to be funded to attend tertiary education? Do you want 49,000? Where would the money for that come from? Oh yes simple Labour mantra. “Borrow more and tax more” .
Insisting that students turn up and actually pass their exams is also fair.
Thousands of people are currently enrolled in ACE classes throughout the country. They have chosen to part with their own money to be upskilled. They do not expect or need a handout from their neighbours.
We now have a government that is closing down low value spending and boosting the economy. National spends to boost the nation. Labour spends to boost support for Labour.
@ Fitiani “Thousands of people are currently enrolled in ACE classes throughout the country.”
not where i live, all the ace courses got canned last year.
Rural NZ got shafted by National again.
@Maryan Street That is good to know, that us part timers are not going to be affected at this stage anyway.
It is shocking about how little National are planning to fund Uni’s. Education it seems is not high on their list. I wonder why this is? From ECE, primary all the way to tertiary level, not forgetting community education, there has been cuts made everywhere.
There was an article in one of our local papers (Capital Times) this week on evening classes. Demand at Wellington High School was booming, as it was at the other 3 schools still running them. People were quite happy to pay a little more to attend the classes IF they were available.
Eighty percent of the schools, including the high decile ones had scrapped them. They did NOT give people the chance to pay more. If they had continued the classes this year and could show that the demand was no longer there with the higher course fees I might believe there was something in the claim that National had scrapped the evening education.
I think the schools and the teachers at the schools simply used the cut in subsidies, for what were often hobby classes, to drop them because it was just too much bother to run them.
For goodness sake. No ACE courses were canned by the government. Not a single one. Stop trying to invent a myth. In some parts of the country providers chose not to even offer classes. In other parts of the country providers chose to offer classes which people chose to join. There are thousands of people attending quality ACE courses every week.
One of the issues that seems to have gone unmentioned in this debate is the proportion of tertiary education resources that the institutions devote to building and supporting layers of administration and employing legions of administrators, rather than on teaching and the people who do it.
I’d like to know what research has been done on this, and if any has been done I’d like to know what the findings were, but my impression has been that the multiplying of administrators was certainly something that was gathering momentum in the early to mid 1990s when I was first involved in tertiary teaching, and was far advanced by my last year therein (2009). Part of the problem seems to be that administrators love to create jobs for other administrators, so that they tend to proliferate like cancer cells and consume resources of which actual educational functions are consequently starved.
@fiisini National did not can Ace courses they just removed the funding. If you dont have funding you cannot pay someone to arrange, promote, organise, collect the money etc.
If you keep them, running at 4 to 5 times the previous costs and do not have the income to cover the wages who pays the wage?
So stop trying to make it sound like NACT had nothing to do with Ace courses being canned. They removed the money, they canned ACE courses in rural NZ.
“employing legions of administrators” – more accurately that is reams of researchers. Our universities are heavy with obscure research topics, and as for teaching, that has NEVER been a university priority, research outputs first, lecturing (as opposed to teaching) second.
Who pays the wage? Are you serious waterboy? The answer is plain in Wellington. The many people who choose to attend ACE classes. So many institutions simply refused to give willing participants the chance to pay their way. That was a shameful act of political pettiness and point scoring that has fooled no one.
National is still funding ACE. FACT
National is spending more on Education FACT
National is keeping 20 hours subsidy for ECE FACT
National expects students to work hard and pass FACT
National is getting better value for money in Vote Education FACT
Fisini If you do not get enough people to attend at incresed costs, you still have to pay the wage. The work is done before the courses start, were you expecting schools who are not business to take a gamble, employ someone out of the school grant in the hope they get the revenue in to fund the courses, and pay the wages.
As i said, it is rural NZ that missed out, the place where peple traveled 50 – 100km to attend courses.
National has a very good marketing team able to put a spin on anything they want, even lies and half truths, FACT
Marketing based on half truths and lies always come to a messy end FACT
The crime rate in NZ is getting worse under National FACT
A lot of Fisiani’s facts appear to be simply opinions.
Now that’s a fact if ever i saw one.
waterboy…. FYI acording to Maryan Street the cost to those people doing ACE courses that the National/Maori government stopped funding was, on average $59. These are the sword- fighting, Italian cooking, silk dying, quilting courses that I, for one, am at a loss to understand why the poor taxpayer should subsidise.
PS. “The crime rate is getting worse under National FACT” Hilarious. And just between you and me, I heard that the nice Mr Key eats babies.
So we are agreed that when people are asked to express an interest in attending an ACE course and pay a bit more then courses can be and are offered and taken up. Taxpayers save 80 million dollars. Lots of rural people will find that the tyranny of distance will be solved by the rollout in high speed fibre being funded by……………National.
ie efficient investment in distance education.
Loota -point to any error in my facts. You will not find one.
Labour was going to roll out that high speed fibre too AND keep the Adult Education classes!
So Labour will campaign next year for poor taxpayers to pay other wealthier people to take hobby courses such as line dancing,spanish cooking, and flower arranging. Please please let it be so.
If you believe Labour promises do you believe they will “axe the tax”. Course not.
Fisiani – to talk about line dancing etc. simply trivialises the issue. Ongoing/adult education is one of the keys to maximising individual potential and opportunity, as well as improving workforce skills and social cohesion.
Labour gets this.
Subsidised line dancing classes will bring about world peace. Yeah right!
Fisiani . National has increased the taxpayers money going to private schools – Fact.
Everybody else has to make do with the same as last. Doubt if the schools are even getting the 20% GST rise reinbursed
@ Fisini – things i have done at ACE courses over the years
back in the early 90s – Microsoft word (useful for all jobs)
Bartenbders certificate – Helped with work, needed for bar managers cert
German – taken twice, useful in current job
Plastering – All home handy peple should take this
None of these were a wste of time or money for myself or the tax payer
GWW National have partly reversed the bigoted annual CUTS to private school funding -FACT
Waterboy- There is no reason why such courses are not still available for a modest fee other than leftist political intransigence by providers.
Fisiani, NACT is about the few, not the many. Helping train adult NZ’ers is only going to benefit our economy and our society. Of course there will be courses available for those who can pay completely out of pocket for them – which leaves out the many people who require these opportunities the most.
As I said, NACT is about the few not the many.
As for your facts Fisiani – they aren’t facts, just opined sound bytes.
@Fisi – Yes I do believe that will axe the tax if they can!
L A B 
R 2 
11
F F 4 P M !!! Yee haa!!
G
@waterboy – Das ist sehr gut!
Prost! 
“GWW National have partly reversed the bigoted annual CUTS to private school funding” – Wow, discriminating against the rich is bigoted. Now I’ve heard everything.
@Loota – well put.