Hipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 01 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8383. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]7.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: Is he satisfied with the oversight he and his officials have of spending on tertiary education programmes?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment): Thank you Mr Speaker and congratulations to the member.Hon Member: Ha ha!Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well it is important—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just answer the question.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Overall yes. There is always room to do more but there have been a small number of providers out of the 730 funded each year that have not been meeting their funding obligations. When that occurs the Tertiary Education Commission does and will take the appropriate steps to recover any funding shortfall. It is certainly better now than in the bad old days when it was all about getting enrolments in the door and not worrying about what happened once they were in there.Chris Hipkins: What action did he or his officials take when they became aware that Quantum Education Group reported a 91 percent completion rate in 2012 despite over 1500 of the 3700 students who received student loans to study at Quantum that year dropping out making the true completion rate more like 47 percent?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: My understanding is that the member’s characterisation of that may not be correct but nevertheless in answer to his question the agencies are conducting some inquiries into that matter; in fact not just the tertiary agencies but also I understand the Financial Markets Authority.Chris Hipkins: Why is he satisfied that he has adequate oversight of spending in tertiary education when Quantum Education Group received student loan fee payments from over 3600 students in 2013 although the Tertiary Education Commission records enrolments for only half that number?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I just repeat the answer that I gave to the previous question.Mr SPEAKER: No. I think you have got to do better than that. The question is quite a different question that requires—it may be a similar answer but it requires an answer.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well as I said those matters that the member refers to—I am not sure that he is characterising them correctly but in any event they are under investigation by the relevant agencies including the Financial Markets Authority.Chris Hipkins: Why does he believe it is acceptable for a tertiary institution to enrol and receive student loan tuition fee payments from thousands of students only to have half of those students drop out within a month of the course starting before they were even counted for Tertiary Education Commission enrolment purposes?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Nobody is saying it is acceptable—nobody is saying that.Chris Hipkins: If it is not acceptable why did he continue to allow it to happen for at least 3 years: in 2012 2013 and 2014?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well the member is incorrect. I did not allow it to happen at all. There are 730 institutions that are funded in this country. They are required to follow funding rules. If they do not follow the funding rules they will be taken to account by the Tertiary Education Commission as the member may have learnt in recent weeks and months. He has seen a couple of high-profile examples of institutions that have either gone out of business or in fact had to repay large amounts of money because they broke those funding rules.