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 / Politics

Bryan Gould: Fund tertiary education locally to compete globally

Herald online
4 Feb, 2016 01:43 AM5 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

Image / iStock

Image / iStock

Opinion by

I was one of the lucky ones. In my day, universities, like primary and secondary schools, charged no fees. With the aid of a scholarship, working in dairy factories during the holidays, and my parents chipping in, I completed my education debt-free.

But, the sceptics will argue, things have changed since then. The numbers going on to university in those days were so small that the cost could easily be borne by the taxpayer. The cost has risen so far today, it is said, that it would be unfair and impracticable to saddle the taxpayer with it.

Paradoxically, however, the case for a free tertiary education has over recent decades actually got stronger, rather than weaker. Whereas in the old days, tertiary education could be easily distinguished from the primary and secondary schools in the compulsory sector by the fact that only a small and privileged minority stayed on the education conveyor belt and went on to university, that distinction is now much harder to maintain.

The fact is that virtually all Kiwis will, at some point in their lives, have some experience of tertiary education. The conveyor belt will still operate for school leavers but it will take them not only to university but to polytechnics, wananga, private academies, apprenticeships and other forms of vocational training.

For those Kiwis who may not go straight on to post-secondary school education, tertiary education will become an option at different and later stages of their lives; nor will their progression through the education world follow a standard pattern. Someone with a Ph.D. may return to education later in life to do a certificate or diploma course in something quite different.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Tertiary education, in other words, is no longer so different from the compulsory sector. It is to all intents and purposes now universal and comprehensive. It is no longer the preserve of the privileged. The case for sparing the taxpayer the cost of tertiary education by applying a "user pays" principle looks pretty shaky when the user and the taxpayer are the same people.

The widely accepted argument that primary and secondary education bring such benefits to the whole of society that they should be publicly funded must, in other words, now be extended to tertiary education as well. Our hesitation about doing so is the product of less than clear thinking.

When I returned to New Zealand in 1994, a body called the Todd Working Party had been set up to decide how the cost of tertiary education should be divided between the public and private purse. The Working Party members spent many no doubt innocently enjoyable hours debating what proportion of the benefits of tertiary education could be attributed to the public good and how much to personal gain.

Some said the proportions were about 50-50. Others favoured one side of the equation rather than another. All persisted in the nonsense that it was a zero-sum game which implied the ridiculous proposition that, the higher the perceived personal benefit, the lower must be the public good.

The truth is that the undeniable public gain from investing in tertiary education can only be achieved through raising the educational levels of individuals, just as it is with compulsory education - the two are necessarily complementary rather than competing. A higher general level of education means better educated individuals but also a better-functioning and more successful society - one able to take a wider and longer-term view and achieve a deeper understanding.

Discover more

Opinion

Bryan Gould: True origins of TPP lie in protecting profits

02 Feb 01:39 AM
Opinion

Andrew Little: NZ must act on spiralling education costs

03 Feb 01:41 AM
Opinion

Editorial: Free tertiary study may trump tax cuts

11 Feb 04:00 PM

As most people instinctively realise, the great economic and social benefits of education can be achieved only if we are prepared to invest in our future. When that investment is made, the benefits are felt by everyone in society. For an investment that is so important, and whose benefits are so widely shared, what could be more sensible than to fund it through the public purse?

The debate about whether tertiary education should be free (that is, taxpayer-funded) or not resolves itself into two main issues. First, is the ramshackle and problematic student loan scheme the best, fairest and administratively most straightforward way of funding tertiary education? The scheme is administratively complex and requires a substantial bureaucracy to allocate and track over decades the loans undertaken by tens of thousands of students.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

It also has a deterrent effect on potential students; and since the debts incurred by virtue of the scheme continue to weigh heavily on individual budgets and to deter expensively educated young Kiwis in particular from returning to New Zealand, so that we are denied the benefits of the education we have funded, the answer to that question would seem to be conclusively in the negative.

The second question is not, as so often suggested, can we afford it, but what priority should we give it? The cost to taxpayers might require us to forego other purposes of public spending (though it would be more than offset by savings to thousands of students and their families).

The real question is, can we afford not to ensure that our future generations are educated to the level that enables us - as a society - to compete in an increasingly global environment?

Bryan Gould is a former UK Labour MP and a former vice-chancellor of Waikato University.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Politics

Politics

Revealed: ‘Major milestone’ for education system announced by Government 

Politics

Watch: PM sets Tāmaki Makaurau byelection date for September 6

New Zealand

NZ Herald Live: Christopher Luxon holds post-Cabinet press conference

Watch

Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Politics

Revealed: ‘Major milestone’ for education system announced by Government 
Politics

Revealed: ‘Major milestone’ for education system announced by Government 

'Labour dismantled regionally-led vocational education – and we are restoring it.'

14 Jul 04:00 AM
Watch: PM sets Tāmaki Makaurau byelection date for September 6
Politics

Watch: PM sets Tāmaki Makaurau byelection date for September 6

14 Jul 03:58 AM
NZ Herald Live: Christopher Luxon holds post-Cabinet press conference
New Zealand

NZ Herald Live: Christopher Luxon holds post-Cabinet press conference

Watch
14 Jul 01:33 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
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