Cash injection for struggling polytech

The Government will pump $8.5 million into a struggling West Coast polytechnic after a report found the provider failed to deliver enough course hours over a fiveyear period.

A Crown manager has been in place at Tai Poutini Polytechnic since 2016 due to concerns over financial losses and weaknesses in student education. A Tertiary Education Commission investigation into the institution began in February 2016.

The investigation’s findings, released on Wednesday, show the polytech – which has campuses in Greymouth, Reefton and Westport – delivered far fewer hours than required across several courses between 2010 and 2015.

Tai Poutini’s financial difficulties meant it was unable to repay funding. Tertiary Education Commission monitoring and Crown ownership manager Dean Winter said the commission would not pursue about $21.2m-worth of under-delivery money from the five-year period.

It also would not seek repayment of $3.65m in under-delivery after Tai Poutini trained fewer students than planned, he said.

Programmes reviewed in the probe included scaffolding, search and rescue, quarrying, mining, crane operations, and occupational safety and health.

‘‘In some of the scaffolding programmes, students were receiving as little as 10 per cent of the teaching hours they were meant to,’’ Winter said.

‘‘That means that in a course where students were expected to receive nearly 200 hours of training, they only did 20.’’

Qualifications gained between 2010 and 2015 had been from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and would remain valid, he said, as it was found students were up to standard despite Tai Poutini failing to meet required teaching hours. The commission’s findings were historical, Winter said, and did not reflect current practices at Tai Poutini.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins on Wednesday announced the Government would pay Tai Poutini an additional $8.5m to keep it running and to improve quality until there were wider institutes of technology and polytechnics sector changes.

It was clear Tai Poutini, which also has campuses in Wanaka, Christchurch and Auckland, had been in serious trouble and that substantial change was needed, Hipkins said.

Fatal campervan crash

Two people died after a campervan hit a tree beside State Highway 27, a rural Waikato highway near Tahuna, yesterday afternoon. The two deceased are understood to have been elderly.

Native trees felled

The Department of Conservation used surveillance cameras to catch an 85-year-old West Coast man felling native trees in a world heritage site. Henry Pomana, of Haast, appeared in the Greymouth District Court yesterday charged with taking plants from a conservation area. The department’s lawyer, Marcus Zintl, said that at the Te Wa¯hipounamu world heritage site in South Westland was home to brown kiwi. He said rangers found four ka¯mahi trees had been cut down with a chainsaw in the Waiatoto Lagoon, between Haast and Jackson Bay, on May 26 last year. ‘‘They set up surveillance cameras and when they checked it, they saw the defendant had returned with a trailer to remove the cut up sections of the felled trees.’’ Pomana was approached by rangers and admitted cutting down the trees and said he was going to use them himself, or give them away, for firewood. Pomana received a six-month suspended sentence.

King gets EQC job

Former Labour stalwart Dame Annette King has been been given the top Earthquake Commission (EQC) job in a bid to speed up unresolved Canterbury earthquake claims. Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission Megan Woods appointed King, who retired from politics at the 2017 election, as interim EQC chair yesterday. She replaces outgoing chairman Sir Maarten Wevers, who resigned last week after Woods made it apparent she was not satisfied with the number of unresolved claims still with EQC seven years after the earthquakes. ‘‘There are still 2600 claims unresolved and that’s simply not good enough. Each claim represents a family that is stuck in limbo – unable to move on with their lives until their homes are repaired or rebuilt,’’ Woods said. The minister also appointed Christine Stevenson, the acting comptroller (financial controller) at Customs, as an independent ministerial adviser tasked with speeding up the fair resolution of EQC claims.

Driver attacked

A driver who hit a 2-year-old boy in North Canterbury was allegedly assaulted when he stopped to check on him. The boy was seriously injured when he was struck by a car at Kaiapoi, at 6.30pm on Friday. Canterbury police rural area commander Inspector Peter Cooper earlier said the boy had been playing on the footpath before running on to the road. The boy was ‘‘extremely lucky’’ to be alive. Yesterday, Senior Sergeant Paul Reeves confirmed the driver of the car that hit the boy was allegedly assaulted when he stopped to help.