English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:617;Page:12634] 
10.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: Does he think the Tertiary Education Commission has done a good job of ensuring that “student enrolments are concentrated in areas of high performance and high strategic relevance.” as he said it would in February 2003? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 The Tertiary Education Commission has made steady progress since its establishment in January 2003. To fund strategically it has needed to get charters and profiles in place. Charters have been completed and profiles will be able to be used from the academic year 2005. We have already seen strategic funding decisions in the Private Training Establishments Strategic Priorities Fund. We have seen it in aviation; we have seen it in the area of industry training and in apprenticeships. Clearly a strategic approach to tertiary education funding is the way to go and I understand that every party in the House agrees with that. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware there have been substantial increases in enrolments in community education courses that have no qualification and no assessment and is he aware that the Tairawhiti Polytechnic enrolled 47000 people in community education which is more than the population of Gisborne; that the Christchurch Polytechnic enrolled—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Some people are very very lucky that I am generous today—very lucky indeed. The member will start that question all over again and no one from his own side had better comment. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware of the strong growth in enrolments in community education where there is no assessment and no qualification and is he aware that the Tairawhiti Polytechnic enrolled 47400 people last year in community education which is more than the population of Gisborne; that the Christchurch Polytechnic enrolled 96600 people in its community education programmes which is almost 1 in 3 of all Christchurch residents and that overall last year almost 1 in 9 New Zealanders were enrolled by polytechs in community education? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The answer to the first part of the question is yes I am aware. In answer to the second part of the question that is one of the reasons we have moved to limit spending in the area of $5.1 million. In answer to the implicit part of the third part of the question I would say it is lucky we have a Labour Government because we have the tools to do this—unlike the National Government which did nothing. 
Jill Pettis 
: How do the funding rules now in place already differ from those put in place by the National-led Government in 1998? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: We have moved away from National’s hands-off model of funding tertiary education. Providers can no longer include computers and other sweeteners in their student loan purposes. The student loan scheme can no longer be used for overseas travel unless it has been specifically approved. Providers can no longer set whatever fee they like. Private training establishments funding has been capped and the capital component removed. The funding of the Performance-based Research Fund means that research is now an accountable area of funding. Restrictions on growth to limit them to 15 percent in 1 year have been put in place and we have capped aviation training. In other words we now have the ability to handle our funding in the tertiary area strategically. In answer to Mr Power’s question about the student loan I understand that Lockwood Smith was out the other day saying what a wonderful scheme it was. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Does he think that the Tertiary Education Commission has done a good job when under his watch it has given out more than $111 million in a year to Te Wananga o Aotearoa which under the auspices of waka-building courses has spent $2 million on a state-of-the-art catamaran with double caterpillar diesel engines which is sitting up in Auckland at the maritime museum waiting to take students for rides? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I think that during the period of the last year—the Tertiary Education Commission was established January 2003—it has made very good progress. It will ensure that this country has a strategic investment in tertiary education. I repeat I do not know of anybody in the House who disagrees with that. 
Marc Alexander 
: Why does the Minister think that the Tertiary Education Commission has ensured that student enrolments are concentrated in areas of high performance and strategic relevance when there is no specific budgeting for the number of equivalent full-time students leading to the blowout in funding for community education courses and when equivalent full-time student funding is calculated without taking into account the actual cost of running the courses? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I do not want to repeat two of the answers I have already outlined during question time because the member obviously was not listening to those. In summary the commission has been going for about a year. It needs two key tools—charters and profiles—to be able to fund directly what is happening in a university or any other tertiary institution. Both of those tools are either developed in the case of the charters or are about to be developed in the case of the profiles. In the second area I outlined during other answers to questions I pointed out how many areas already have strategic funds. Industry training Modern Apprenticeships private training etc. already have strategic priority funding. 
Hon Bill English 
: Just what strategic tools did the Minister use to make sure that community education funding rose from $13 million in 2000 to $105 million last year and enrolments in community education rose from 85000 in 2000 to 465000 last year when these courses are as he has said himself of dubious quality? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As the member knows 5.1 funding for community and adult education was introduced by the National Government in 1991. When we noticed that this fund was growing to such a large extent last year we took the opportunity to firstly change it. We can change it only from academic year to academic year so we moved immediately to do that. But I say to the member that adult community education is a tradition in this country that has gone back for a good 100 years. We have funded informal community kinds of education as the first step into tertiary education. We will continue to do that into the future because we have the ability to do it. We will do it within a capped fund and it will be more strategically focused. 
Marc Alexander 
: Does the Minister support the comments of the departing head of the Tertiary Education Commission Dr Andrew West that student enrolments and vocational training should be encouraged and that universities should take in only the academically most able; if so will he consider raising the requirements for university entrance in light of the move towards a performance-based funding model and away from the current emphasis of “bums on seats”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The whole point of the reforms is to move away from what the National Party used to call “bums on seats”. Universities set their own entrance standards. That is why they exist—to set their own entrance standards. As to whether I agree with Dr West’s parting comments those are comments I myself have made—that we need to ensure that young New Zealanders make a choice. It means that they understand fully it is as good to go through industry training as it is to take on a polytechnic course or some other kind of full-time institutional study. 
Hon Bill English 
: Given that the Minister has spent 5 years now talking about steering the tertiary sector why is the end result of all that talk that the lowest-value courses in community education have grown vastly more than any other type of course including the growth in trade education? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Growth in areas like Modern Apprenticeships for example has gone from zero to 7000 at the present time. So growth rates in areas like industry training which have gone from 86000 to 150000 at the end of what we are doing at the current time will be a 100 percent increase in funding. I think this Government has ensured that what we are doing is making best use of our tertiary education funding—unlike the shameless policy followed by that previous National Government which simply funded bums on seats.