Cullen Michael: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Cullen Michael: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9063] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister for Tertiary Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Education and Science Committee. 
The purpose of the bill is to implement the Government’s reforms of the system for the planning funding and monitoring of the provision of tertiary education. These reforms will develop a tertiary system that will fulfil better the country’s needs in terms of national identity economic transformation and support for families young and old. At the same time the changes to the tertiary education sector will help to provide better value for the investment by taxpayers and contribute to an even better education for tertiary students. 
The Government is committed to a quality tertiary education and training system that is relevant to the needs of New Zealand. A key aspect of these reforms is the placing of national goals and priorities at the centre of the tertiary sector’s focus. We want a tertiary education system that produces the right mix of the skilled graduates needed to support economic transformation. We need a tertiary education system that delivers research relevant to the needs of our businesses and industry our communities and the country. The reforms are introducing an investment system that aligns planning funding and monitoring and that focuses on investing in priority areas identified at national and local levels. The funding mechanism underpins investing in a planned approach. This investing in a planned approach is at the very centre of the reforms and changes. 
The bill being read today for a first time provides the legislative mechanisms needed to give effect to the reforms. It will provide tertiary education organisations with a simpler more streamlined relationship to central government. As the explanatory note of the bill states: “The public policy objective of the Bill”—and the reform—“is to ensure that the tertiary education sector contributes towards tertiary education outcomes that are more closely aligned with the social economic and environmental interests” of the country. 
Under the new system the Government will be responsible for setting the sector’s long-term strategic objectives and the current to medium-term priorities for the tertiary education strategy. This is a simplified process compared with the current process of both a tertiary education strategy and statement of tertiary education priorities. The Government will also be responsible for determining the overall level of investment in the provision of tertiary education and how it will be allocated between the different subsectors and between teaching and learning research and organisational capability building. This will be achieved by the responsible Minister who will issue funding mechanisms that the Tertiary Education Commission will implement. 
The Tertiary Education Commission will be responsible for issuing guidance on how different tertiary education organisations can contribute towards achieving objectives in the tertiary education strategy. The commission will be responsible for approving plans submitted by tertiary education organisations for funding purposes and for determining the amount of funding to be allocated. The commission will have the discretion to approve plans in whole or in part for funding purposes. The commission will monitor the performance of tertiary education organisations in meeting specified outcomes in accordance with specified quality and performance measures and in working with tertiary education organisations to address performance issues as they arise. I do not underestimate the difficulty of specifying appropriate quality and performance measures in the tertiary education sector but the English have made considerable progress in that regard. 
The Tertiary Education Commission will be building the capability of tertiary education organisations to achieve the outcomes specified in their plans. Tertiary education organisations will be responsible for preparing proposed plans in consultation with their stakeholders for submitting them to the commission for approval for funding purposes and of course for implementing those approved plans including amending reviewing or replacing them as necessary over the plan’s 3-year time span. 
The reform process is already well under way. In December last year the Government issued a new tertiary education strategy that sets the Government’s expectations and priorities for New Zealand’s tertiary education system over the next 5 years. Universities wananga polytechnics institutes of technology industry training organisations private tertiary establishments and other tertiary education providers will each prepare a plan in consultation with their stakeholders—students local businesses local councils and their communities—on how they intend to meet their needs and contribute to the tertiary education strategy. 
The plans will include information about what education will be provided and performance commitments in relation to that. The key difference—the core as I said—is linking funding with the delivery of the plan. This will give the public more confidence in the value of taxpayers’ investments in tertiary education. Confidence in the last decade I think it is fair to say has not always been available to the public. The plans will be multi-year ones and this will give the Government and the sector more certainty in terms of funding. Prior to the submission of plans to the Tertiary Education Commission for approval organisations will have actively engaged with the commission over the development of their plans. This will allow for any potential issues to be identified early with a view to resolving them before approval is sought. The bill expressly provides for organisations to develop the content of their plans in collaboration with the commission. The commission will consider and approve for funding purposes the final plans for each organisation and determine the level of funding allocated to each organisation. The commission will then monitor the performance of the tertiary education organisations in meeting specified outcomes in accordance with those specified quality performance measures and work with them to address performance issues as they arise. 
One of the aims of the reforms is to provide our tertiary education organisations with much clearer boundaries. Universities wananga polytechnics institutes of technology industry training organisations and private training establishments all have distinctive and important roles to play in education training research and higher scholarship and in building knowledge and understanding. I think that the current model started by the 1989 Education Act led to organisations pushing their boundaries without sufficient reference to each other or to the impact on the system as a whole. These reforms place clearer boundaries around what different types of organisations should be focusing on and how they should be collaborating to provide more choice and better quality to students—in other words concentrating on their distinctive contribution as opposed to each trying to emulate the other. 
For all tertiary education organisations the new system will provide more certainty so that organisations can plan ahead and focus on delivering a portfolio of courses and qualifications that meet the needs of students and employers regions and communities. Although the new system will bring greater control to the way we invest in tertiary education it is not about limiting access to tertiary education. Instead it is about ensuring that tertiary education resources are focused towards education that meets social and economic priorities. We want organisations to focus not only on managing fluctuating demand for individual courses but rather on managing changes based on the needs of their communities and the country. We have seen enormous fluctuations in rolls over recent years in some tertiary education establishments. 
There is also a risk that a system of plan-led funding may be perceived as a move towards the centralised control of provision. That is certainly not the intention. In fact we are moving to a system that requires organisations to reflect better the realities of New Zealand as a whole and the different skill and learning needs of regions and students. Students will have the confidence of knowing that the tertiary education environment is more settled secure and focused on achieving goals and objectives. They will know that the courses they are studying the research they are undertaking or the skills they are learning are a response to the needs of industry or to regions of the country. I say that that should be interpreted broadly particularly in the great range of humanities. They will be more likely to undertake a qualification if they have greater confidence that their new skills will be relevant to their preferred career. 
The research sector employers and communities can have confidence that their needs will be far better addressed by the sector. We are looking for greater cooperation stronger linkages and more general interaction to ensure that research courses and training are focused on the right areas. Perhaps most important New Zealanders and taxpayers will be reassured that they are investing in a tertiary education sector that is both relevant and accountable focused on quality and more streamlined and efficient. 
I want to make one personal point. This is not a system that I want to see become a purely utilitarian system of education. The Prime Minister who is an ex-lecturer in political studies a Deputy Prime Minister who is an ex-lecturer in history and a Minister of Education who is an ex-lecturer in sociology are scarcely going to place great stress only on those courses that lead to immediate practical employment producing widgets. That would be a rather strange denial of our own collective past. But the reality is that at the moment we have an enormous duplication of courses that are leading neither to an expansion of knowledge and understanding nor to direct employability. On the other hand we also have significant underproduction of skills for which there is a great need in our communities and of which we have a great shortage in terms of supplies to employers. That mismatch of investment and needs is one that needs to be addressed by a more focused approach towards investing in a plan by the Tertiary Education Commission and tertiary education organisations. I commend the bill to the House.