‘Sea of orange’ to make a point
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed he will visit Invercargill tomorrow and the person behind the Stand Up for SIT protest says he will be met with a sea of orange.
Government officials will be in town as part of the consultation process around the proposal to merge 16 polytechnics and institutes, including the Southern Institute of Technology.
The officials will talk through the proposal at a public meeting.
A staffer for Hipkins confirmed the minister was ‘‘almost certain to be there for the first hour at least’’.
The merger proposal has been met with angst in the Southland community. One the most vocal has been former Southland Chamber of Commerce president Carla Forbes. She has initiated a Stand Up for SIT campaign against the proposal. The Invercargill businesswoman has spent the past few days engaging with Southland businesses to see what support they would be prepared to throw behind the campaign. The response had been phenomenal, Forbes said.
Businesses had put forward either money or staff resource, as well as agreeing to have buildings or signs covered in orange.
The biggest barrier for Forbes, in her quest to get as much of Invercargill covered in orange as possible, is the timeframe as sign writers worked as fast as they could, she said.
Forbes confirmed the campaign would cost into the ‘‘tens of thousands’’ of dollars and that money had been generated by the support of Southland businesses.
The people behind the campaign have been in contact with SIT officials to gather information for accuracy purposes.
However Forbes said the campaign was being run separate to any SIT submissions.
Forbes hopes Southlanders will take the opportunity to pack out the public meeting tomorrow.
Waitaki National MP Jacqui Dean also waded in on the debate, saying the ‘‘mega-merger’’ proposal was not needed in the south.
‘‘At the Southern Institute of Technology, domestic enrolments are up 15 per cent this year and the trades faculty is up 16 per cent on last year.
‘‘These are strong results and reflect institutions that are not only successful, but are continuing to grow and flourish.
‘‘The Government should be consulting with them on a way forward for polytechnic education, rather than snuffing out their ingenuity and forcing them to conform to a national model that has never even been tested.
‘‘There may well be a need for polytechnic restructuring in other parts of the country but don’t penalise this region for the failings of others – leave our local educational assets alone.’’