Polytech rescue plan packs jolt for trainees
Tertiary union boss sees stability in idea but ITO chief holds concerns
Arescue plan for financially struggling polytechnics has turned into an upheaval for the whole industry training system in the Government’s latest radical plan for education.
The plan, unveiled by Education Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday, proposes a single NZ Institute of Skills and Technology to replace all 16 existing polytechnics and to take over most of the country’s 145,000 apprentices and industry trainees.
It goes way beyond any of the options discussed in consultations with training bodies and employers last year, but follows a pattern of “big and bold” reforms already proposed for managing schools and for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).
Tertiary Education Union president Michael Gilchrist declared himself happy with the plan, despite likely job losses, because it would create longterm security for staff in what have been financially shaky regional polytechnics.
“We’ve had 60 staffing reviews in polytechnics in the last year,” he said.
“We are sure there will be greater job security in the future. [It’s] almost impossible to create any more insecurity than is currently the case.”
But Industry Training Federation chief executive Josh Williams said a proposal to transfer apprentices and industry trainees from industry training organisations (ITOs) to the new institute and other training providers would mean “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”.
“Clearly this review began with urgent issues with the financial situation of several of our polytechnics,” he said.
“Meanwhile our workbased training and apprenticeship system has been performing well.
“We hoped that the Government would ramp up the model that has been working [and] as a result bolster our vocational training providers who offer block courses.
“Instead, we see the creation of something where the capacity to support workplace training and apprenticeships would need to be developed — which is ironic because we already have that [in the ITOs].”
Employers have been more supportive. Business NZ chief executive Kirk Hope said he was “very positive about the change”.
Master Builders Federation chief executive Dave Kelly said he accepted the need for change, but he could not see how the proposals helped his key aims of attracting enough people into the building industry and enabling more builders to take on apprentices.
“We would [query] whether this is the right model and whether the polytechs have capacity to be more engaged with the business community than they are perceived to be at the moment,” he said.
“The ITOs . . . tend to be more focused on their industry. Polytechs [deal with] many different kinds of industries.”
A consultation document says the proposals are designed to stop polytechnics and ITOs competing for trainees. The current system creates funding incentives for polytechs to keep trainees in fulltime education rather than get them into apprenticeships.
“The system needs to increase the amount of vocational learning that takes place in the workplace,” the document says. It says the new institute would be able to find new employers for trainees whose initial employers hit financial problems, or to transfer trainees to classroom-based learning — effectively reducing the risks for employers in taking on apprentices.
Gilchrist said his union would fight for all staff whose jobs will disappear in the shakeup to be offered retraining or redeployment.
Polytechnics employed 8150, and ITOs 1300, fulltimeequivalent staff in 2017. The consultation documents do not say how many jobs would be lost, but the scale of deficits facing the existing polytechnics if no action was taken suggest that at least hundreds of staff will have to go to restore the system’s financial security.
The plan is open for consultation until March 27.
The polytechnic sector is an unusual part of the economy, expanding when other industries are contracting and jobs are scarce, struggling when the rest of the economy is expanding. For the past six years the economy has been growing and polytechnic rolls have been dropping to the point that their accounts are in deficit and some have needed financial bailouts. These are the state-owned training institutes, the sector also has subsidised private training establishments that go out of business if they cannot adjust to the needs of industries and trainees when jobs are plentiful.
And there are also providers of on-the-job training who do well in times such as this.
The Government has now decided to take direct control of the entire sector. It blames competition for the plight of the state-owned polytechs of late and it intends to put all of them, including private training establishments and apprenticeships, under the direction of a central body, to be called the NZ Institute of Skills & Technology. The 16 polytechs around the country will become campuses of the central institute. The private training establishments and on-the-job apprenticeships will have to conform to the policies and direction of the central body to get subsidies.
The private sector’s industry training organisations will no longer be able to choose the providers of the industry’s training courses. That will be done by the Government’s Tertiary Education Commission which also oversees universities. Nor will the industry organisations set standards of skills and assessment in their trades. Those will be set by the providers with the industry organisation reduced to an advisory role.
Announcing this regime yesterday, Education Minister Chris Hipkins expected it would result in more on-the-job vocational training rather than institutionalised education but it is hard to share that confidence. He insists there will be no polytech jobs cut and none of the financially failing institutes faces closure. The structure he has described will be run by a supreme institute and it will set up “regional leadership groups” to assess the local workforce skill requirements and suggest the courses that should be offered in that region. In these groups local industry would be just one voice, along with iwi, schools and local government.
Currently 140,000 people are engaged in apprenticeships or other on-the-job training in New Zealand, more than the 110,000 enrolled in polytechs. On-the-job training provides people with an income as well as skills they can apply as they learn. Institutional learning tends to be more theoretical and unduly long. Courses can run for years and turn out graduates who employers find still have much to learn when they start a job.
It does institutions no harm to struggle to fill their courses when jobs are plentiful. It forces them to pare their courses to the essentials and not waste students’ time. They will become more responsive to industry’s practical needs if their survival depends on it. This regime replaces competitive forces with “collaborative” talk.