Unitec students take $46m woes in stride
Unitec students appear to be taking the institute’s financial woes in their stride as they buckle down to exams.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced on Wednesday that Auckland’s Unitec was in extreme financial difficulty and faced a $46 million hole in its budget over this year and 2019.
The Government is preparing to appoint a commissioner to take over the running of Unitec, which describes itself as the country’s largest institute of technology, with more than 20,000 students.
But Unitec student union president Matalena O’Mara said students were focusing on their exams and completing their assignments.
‘‘As the announcement was only made yesterday afternoon, I have not yet received any concerns or complaints,’’ she said yesterday.
Unitec was repeatedly warned by the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) that an ideological experiment to make the institute more ‘‘market focused’’ would land it in trouble, TEU president Sandra Grey said.
Sources suggested more of the country’s 16 tertiary institutes and polytechnics would soon reveal fresh financial problems.
Grey said she was unaware of that, but many had been coping with a downturn for the sector by eating into their cash reserves.
Taranaki’s Western Institute of Technology said in November that it was $2.4m in the red and would be cutting staff and courses this year.
Grey said the sector had been hit by falling enrolments caused in part by relatively full employment, but Unitec had compounded that by a ‘‘big experiment’’ by its former management that began four years ago.
That involved Unitec placing less reliance on full-time teaching staff in favour of ‘‘industry experts’’ who were brought in on a more casual basis to give lectures.
A move two years ago to outsource much of the institution’s administrative work had failed and resulted in a ‘‘disconnect’’ between teaching and other staff, she said.
Grey said the policies had been reversed by new management at Unitec but had been responsible for enrolments at Unitec dropping faster than at other institutes.
‘‘We made multiple representations to Unitec’s council saying that project was the reason it was doing much worse than any other polytechnic in terms of enrolments and why staff morale was at rock bottom.
‘‘It is really awful to be standing here today saying: ‘We told you so.’ ’’
Hipkins told students they could have ‘‘every confidence’’ that the financial issues would be addressed.
‘‘Our message for students at this time is that the Government is committed to ensure top quality vocational education and training is available at Unitec,’’ he said on Wednesday.
Grey agreed there was no reason to have a lack of confidence in the quality of the education provided by Unitec ‘‘provided there is a strong pulling together of staff, student and management with the commissioner’’.
‘‘There has been a complete change-around in the managers that were there.’’
But thought would need to be given to how tertiary education should be funded during upturns in the economy, when institutes and polytechnics tended to do less well, she said.
‘‘Because of the funding model NorthTec didn’t have the right numbers to teach its construction course this year, so it cut it at a time that we need builders.’’