NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Credits given without training - report

By Andrew Laxon
News Editor·NZ Herald·
5 Aug, 2011 05:30 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The ITO will provide more evidence to clear its name. Photo / Thinkstock

The ITO will provide more evidence to clear its name. Photo / Thinkstock

Plumbing and gasfitting apprentices were given qualifications for training they apparently never did, an investigation has found.

The Weekend Herald understands the Plumbing, Gasfitting, Drainlaying and Roofing Industry Training Organisation awarded its trainees hundreds of unit standards which cannot be accounted for.

The claim is made in a Qualifications Authority draft report, which also says the ITO also did not provide assessment schedules, which could have proved the results were based on legitimate work.

The ITO rejected the draft findings as "probably 60 per cent wrong" and said it would provide more evidence to clear its name.

It is understood that NZQA found no evidence that the organisation - which receives millions of dollars from taxpayers for training each year - knowingly reported false results.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But the final report is expected to recommend tighter controls on the material taught to apprentices and checks to make sure the problem is not widespread.

The investigation stems from a complaint in April by former Unitec plumbing and gasfitting head Garry Cruickshank, who said the ITO had illegally passed 24 apprentices, based on substandard and largely irrelevant course work which it had supplied to the Manukau Institute of Technology.

Mr Cruickshank, who was employed at MIT at the time, said he repeatedly warned the ITO that the course was inadequate and unsafe, but his concerns were ignored.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He described the ITO's decision to award qualifications to the students who had never passed the unit standards required as "a serious concern to public health and safety".

The training organisation's chief executive, Ian Elliott, said the report's findings were based on a misunderstanding about how the course worked.

He said the ITO could not supply the assessment materials demanded by NZQA because it did not have any.

"Some of the stuff in there is probably right, probably 60 per cent of it's wrong.

Discover more

New Zealand|education

Under-fire training strategy put under Govt microscope

03 Jun 09:04 PM
New Zealand|education

Future of Chch schools still undecided

27 Jun 01:36 AM
New Zealand|education

Auckland college worries NZQA

11 Jul 05:30 PM
New Zealand

Bar raised for university entrance

10 Aug 07:02 AM

Mr Cruickshank disagreed, saying the report got most things right, although he believed it should have more thoroughly investigated his claim that the ITO had deliberately misreported results to increase pass rates.

He said he would give the Qualifications Authority more evidence showing the practice was systemic and had been so for at least 13 years.

He described the hundreds of wrongly reported results as "just the tip of the iceberg".

The report is the latest in a series of embarrassments for industry training organisations, which are now the subject of a review ordered by Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce.

Last month 18 ITOs, including plumbing, had to pay back $4.3 million which they received in 2009 for people they had wrongly listed as trainees - including 11 people who turned out to be dead.

Mr Joyce told a select committee in June that part of the problem was "phantom trainees", who were signed up but not training.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In 2008 and 2009, he said, 44,400 people enrolled in training did not achieve any credits.

More than half the people listed as training in those years achieved no credits, costing taxpayers $58 million in 2009.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

New Zealand

'Knew he was gone': Truck driver describes seeing cyclist he'd hit, lying on ground

01 Jul 07:00 AM
New ZealandUpdated

MetService concedes Cyclone Gabrielle red weather warning could've come sooner

01 Jul 06:21 AM
New Zealand|crime

'Quite a mess': Man who rammed cop car in stolen vehicle given jail and a $10k bill

01 Jul 06:00 AM

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

'Knew he was gone': Truck driver describes cyclist he'd hit lying on ground

'Knew he was gone': Truck driver describes cyclist he'd hit lying on ground

01 Jul 07:00 AM

A judge says the truck driver wasn't at fault, as the road markings lacked clarity.

MetService concedes Cyclone Gabrielle red weather warning could've come sooner

MetService concedes Cyclone Gabrielle red weather warning could've come sooner

01 Jul 06:21 AM
'Quite a mess': Man who rammed cop car in stolen vehicle given jail and a $10k bill

'Quite a mess': Man who rammed cop car in stolen vehicle given jail and a $10k bill

01 Jul 06:00 AM
Watch: The moment a young family loses new home in swollen raging river

Watch: The moment a young family loses new home in swollen raging river

01 Jul 06:00 AM
From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP