Turei Metiria: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Turei Metiria: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I want to take just a short call on the second reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. We are very pleased to support this bill at its second reading and in the remaining stages. I was able to participate in the Education and Science Committee for some of the submissions and for the consideration. As always Brian Donnelly’s chairmanship of the committee was very skilful and well done. It is always a pleasure to be on that committee. 
We have always been concerned about the tertiary sector being so focused on the market demands and on what is known as the “bums on seats” funding model. That model has tended in the past to disenfranchise those who have the greatest investment in seeing the tertiary sector be successful—the students who are enrolled the staff who are employed and the country as a whole which is in need of the skills and the critical analysis that universities enable these students to have. We are very pleased that under the bill the funding model has been altered to some degree—not entirely but to some degree—to be focused more on the longer term with a greater emphasis on longer-term planning. It is good to hear Mr Donnelly make it clear that 10-year charters are no longer required under the bill which some members of the House were unfortunately misinformed about. But there is still the process for long-term planning which is crucial. 
Under the previous model before this bill the demand-driven nature of tertiary education and tertiary funding led to the closure of a number of very well-established humanities courses at the universities in Waikato and Christchurch—Canterbury University. The courses were closed not because they were not successful or because they were not making their contribution to the academic priorities of the institutions and not because they were losing money either—people were going to those courses and enjoying them and were successful at them—but simply because they were not producing enough profit as required by the university at the time. It still remains a little unclear to me whether under this new regime those kinds of cuts in courses that are successful but not considered to be highly in demand or major money-spinners will be entirely prevented by the reforms. That is still a very serious concern particularly when we are looking at cuts to courses like Islamic studies in Canterbury in particular but also women’s studies courses and other humanities courses across the board. 
This is where the free-market ideology from the past has had a huge impact on the tertiary sector. We see that reflected in the profit-driven approach of the universities—and the example of course is the cutting of these kinds of courses—and in the fierce competition between universities. Universities are spending millions and millions of dollars on advertising in competition with each other wasting money on television advertisements when students and staff are desperately in need of resources and good-quality courses to make sure that they are successful in their studies. Of course the massive increase in fees and the student loans system which although said to increase participation because people can go into debt to get their education now in fact drive up the whole concept of a market-driven model for tertiary education. It is a model that has failed those students and the community as a whole. 
Students are coming out of the tertiary sector with massive debts and unable to have an ordinary life that is expected in the New Zealand way—to buy a home start a family and all of those things—because they come out of university with $30000 or $50000 worth of debt. They then leave town and leave the country to go overseas so that they can pay off those debts. Do they return? Some do; many do not. The disadvantage to the country as a whole from that kind of funding model—the kind of market-driven model and that free-market ideology—has been very clear. It is about time something was done about it. I am not convinced that these reforms will completely fix it. Real issues relating to student support and allowances and student loans still exist. This bill does not fix all of the funding issues that need to be sorted but it does go some way towards resolving some of them. 
We were very pleased to be able to hear submissions during the select committee process from a number of the stakeholder groups and very pleased with the decision of the committee to include an expressed comment about the retention of or support for academic freedom and institutional autonomy. That was a very serious concern raised by a number of submitters. It is important that they are able to retain that function as the critique of society in general and as a whole. So it is good that that was done. 
We are pleased that the Government is choosing to take a strong overall view of the sector and of the strategic directions the sector is going in and that this bill is making some of those changes. In effect it is kind of fiddling around the edges to some extent because of the major issues around things like student loans. Some options around the competition have been sorted but not all of them. The sector still needs major reform in order to deliver to the community and New Zealanders what it is supposed to. Thank you.