Polytech ‘sorry to all staff’

Under-fire mega polytechnic Te Pū kenga has extended an apology to staff as it faces a major financial crisis, intense scrutiny over its performance and fears of significant redundancies to tackle a $110 millionplus debt crisis.

But, despite those headaches, it’s also ruling out asking the Government for an extension to the end-of-year deadline for completing the transition to a unified national technical institute and industry training organisation entity.

In an email obtained by Stuff, acting chief executive Peter Winder said on Thursday that chairperson Murray Strong had apologised to the chairs and chief executives of various tertiary education institutions and organisations the previous day.

‘‘Today I extend that apology to all staff across Te Pū kenga.’’

He said the council of the Hamiltonbased organisation acknowledged the current ‘‘difficult circumstances’’ and ‘‘considerable adverse publicity’’.

Winder said the council admitted Te Pū kenga ‘‘has not listened in the way that we should have and that we have not used the tremendous expertise across the network to best advantage’’ during the organisation’s establishment.

The council also recognised the organisation was not where it needed to be in the transition process to a fully unified Te Pū kenga, Winder said.

‘‘The council apologises for not making the progress that was needed and for the worry and concerns that has caused.’’

Winder said Te Pū kenga needed to change and would more actively seek ‘‘expertise and guidance’’ from people within the sector, be more open and transparent and put aside any activities ‘‘not mission critical’’ for achieving a unified system by December 31 this year.

He ruled out asking the Minister of Education to extend that deadline.

Winder’s email outlined a range of specific actions including ‘‘identifying significant savings to address our difficult financial position’’.

National’s tertiary education spokesperson, Penny Simmonds, a former sector chief executive, and several other sector sources have said they fear significant redundancies as part of this savings process.

Winder’s email is the latest twist in controversy that has followed the release of a critical Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) report on Te Pū kenga to Education Minister Chris Hipkins.

TEC warned the latest annual deficit could surge to $110m, which was $53.5m more than budgeted, and could be even higher. This was due to lower enrolments.

Hipkins subsequently said he had been clear this projected deficit was too high and more work was needed on this.

A meeting of the council on Monday was due to discuss an action plan to address Te Pū kenga’s woes but, apart from Thursday’s email to staff, no announcements about that are known to have been made publicly.

Stuff has previously asked Hipkins how confident he was that the problems Te Pū kenga was facing could be sorted out in a timely way, how it would fund the bigger deficit it faces, and whether he knew why more progress hadn’t been made. But he didn’t reply directly.

‘‘I’ve made my expectations clear and know Te Pukenga is working hard on the transition,’’ he said last week.

The Tertiary Education Union’s national secretary, Sue Grey, says the mega-polytechnic concept is ‘‘not broken as an idea’’ even if all the moving parts of reform aren’t ‘‘moving evenly’’.

Benefits of getting it right included greater collaboration and efficiency, and protecting education opportunities in smaller communities and less popular programmes.