A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
The merger of the country’s polytechnics that began in 2020, and is scheduled to have Hamilton-based Te Pukenga — The New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology take over as a single entity in January 2023, is not going well. One fear (and opportunity for the Opposition) is that this
is a harbinger of delivery issues for the Government’s other centralisation projects in health, Three Waters and public-funded media.
Last week Te Pukenga’s acting chief executive apologised for a projected $110 million deficit this year and delays in transitioning polytechs to the new entity. The CEO has been on special leave with pay since a critical report was issued about the organisation and its finances. A former senior executive has said a commissioner is needed because she has no faith in the current board’s ability to sort out the organisation’s problems.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has pointed to pandemic impacts, which removed the income many polytechs got from international students. He told Stuff he didn’t believe a commissioner was justified “at this time”, that this was a big change for the sector, and that he was encouraged by the updates he was getting from Te Pukenga.
Grilled over the deficit in Parliament yesterday, Hipkins said hiring restrictions had been introduced and subsidiaries had been asked to look at cost control.
The new institute has had $200m of establishment funding and is meant to be a one-stop shop for vocational education and on-the-job training delivered at 16 polytechs nationwide (some of which, like our own, are called institutes of technology). It will also absorb the newly nationalised industry training organisations.
