Dialogue: Report no threat to free will of tertiary students

STEVE MAHAREY* says planned education changes will not result in students being told what they can and cannot study.

The Tertiary Education Advisory Commission released the second of what will be a series of four reports last week. Weekend Herald columnist John Roughan rushed to condemn it. He should have read the report first.

Roughan's article appeared to be motivated by a concern that his daughter might be prevented from studying law. I can assure him that his fears are without foundation. The work of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission will not result in a central committee telling students what they can and cannot study. What might happen is explained in the commission's report, Shaping the System.

The report argues that our system does not allow for any real discretion to be exercised when it comes to choosing what the public purse will or will not fund.

The result is that New Zealand remains poorly positioned to meet the challenge of building an economically prosperous and a socially just nation capable of competing internationally.

Over the past 10 years, what is taught in the tertiary education sector has been largely guided by the choices of students.

There are two major problems with this. The first is that students often lack the information they need to make fully informed choices.

The second is that other stakeholders, such as the employers of graduates, the end users of the research produced, or those involved in making industry training a reality in the workplace, have been marginalised. These voices must be heard.

None of the nations we like to compare ourselves with allow their tertiary education systems to be driven completely by student choice. In all cases there is an attempt to establish a national strategy.

Sometimes that strategy is Government-directed (for example, Finland and Singapore), sometimes direction comes from a strategy involving stakeholder input (for example, Ireland and Israel). The commission believes the second model is the more appropriate one for New Zealand.

I spend a great deal of time meeting and listening to the consumers of our tertiary education and training system. For the business community, in particular, the issue is, with one or two notable exceptions, a lack of responsiveness on the part of tertiary education providers. Student choices do not reflect the strategic imperatives driving economic change.

After 10 years of a competitive model, the need for the change in direction suggested by the commission is so obvious as to be beyond argument.

Reaction to the commission's recommendations has been overwhelmingly positive. Of course people want to see the two remaining reports and hear about the kind of investment the Government can make in the tertiary sector. But they agree that we cannot continue with current policies.

The commission has made sensible recommendations. It suggests that if we want to take a strategic approach to education, we need to establish an intermediary body that coordinates all aspects of tertiary education, including second-chance education and training.

It has set out ways of gaining greater differentiation and specialisation among providers and institutions. It wants to make greater use of charters to develop longer-term strategic vision and profiles which would set out the programmes for which a provider or institution would be funded.

Another key recommendation is that networks and centres of research excellence are needed to promote world-class research capacity and capability. At the moment, we spread our research funding far too thinly. We need to concentrate our resources more if we are to stand any chance of establishing ourselves as a player in the international community.

As can be seen, none of this will prevent Roughan's daughter from studying law. She already has a choice of five law schools and student choice will continue to be a feature of the system. But it will not be the only, or the main driver of tertiary education provision.

Future students will make choices in an environment that reflects the Government's requirement that tertiary education and training meets the tests of quality and accessibility, and relevance to our national interests.

Such students will regard this a plus not a minus. Their opportunities to study in a tertiary education and training system of this kind will be enhanced, not reduced, by the approach foreshadowed in the commission report.

The commission's recommendations have been warmly welcomed by the Government, and final decisions will be made once we have heard from all those with an interest in the system. Over the next month, forums will take place all over the country.

I am very keen to move forward. Last year, I worked my way through an enormous number of policies affecting student access. The removal of interest from loans taken out by full-time and low-income part-time students is but one example. It is now time to shift our attention to the system itself. Our goal is excellence and I will settle for nothing less.

* Steve Maharey is the Tertiary Education Minister.

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