Fears plan may add to skills shortage

Industries struggling to find enough workers are worried that moves to overhaul vocational training could make the situation worse.

The Government is proposing to combine the country’s 16 polytechnics into one single entity, the New Zealand Institution of Skills and Technology.

The new entity would also take over responsibility for the country’s apprentices, which would make industry training organisations (ITOs) partially redundant.

The sector as a whole lost $53 million in 2017, and four polytechs – Greymouth’s Tai Poutini Polytechnic, Wellington’s Whitireia and WelTec, and Unitec in Auckland – together received

$100m in Crown bailouts last year.

Fiona Kingsford, chief executive of Competenz, one of the largest ITOs, said the proposal could undermine training that was vital in addressing New Zealand skills shortages.

New Zealand has a shortage of construction workers, electricians, engineers, automotive engineers, diesel motor mechanics, panelbeaters, scaffolders and plasterers, among other things.

Kingsford said while there was a need for reform in the training sector, there was a danger the change could do significant damage to the pipeline of workers.

Any sign of uncertainty would make people question whether they wanted to sign up to a system when they were unsure what the outcome would be.

‘‘In a time of critical skills shortages, the last thing we want is a reform that risks undermining workplace training and apprenticeship programmes.’’

Engineering is Competenz’ biggest sector. She said the country would need another

12,000 engineers by 2022.

‘‘If we start this reform in 2020, there’s no way we’re going to hit that target.

‘‘Yes, the system needs reform and yes we need to address the funding inequalities, but in our opinion, the [proposed changes] are not the way to do it.’’

Warwick Quinn, chief executive of the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, agreed there was a risk.

He said if potential trainees did not know what was happening, they might opt to do nothing.

That would be bad for construction, which was ‘‘desperate’’ for trainees, he said.

‘‘We don’t want to just have people sit on the fence until they know what’s going on. We don’t want a year of ‘what’s happening here’?’’

He said it was important that school-leavers and others pondering training carried on as normal.