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QTI endorses closure of below-standard tertiary provider


Quality Tertiary Institutions endorses closure of below-standard tertiary provider
Press Release – Quality Tertiary Institutions (QTI)

19 May 2017
For Immediate Release

Quality Tertiary Institutions (Nga Wananga Kounga), a key private tertiary education sector peak body, has welcomed the Government’s decision to close down the deeply troubled Linguis International Institute by cancelling its registration due to persistent substandard educational performance.

Executive Director Neil Miller said QTI “welcomed NZQA taking a tougher stance and taking more action against this type of behaviour. This is clear case of massive under performance over a long period of time. It is a shame that the failed institution chose to direct its efforts more towards legal action constantly challenging NZQA, rather than addressing the systemic problems of plagiarism, poor moderation and over-crowding, which had all been well documented. Based on the official evaluation reports which were (eventually) released late last year, closing Linguis was absolutely the right call.”

QTI Co-Chair Wendy Pyne (Bethlehem Tertiary Institute) affirmed that “low quality education delivery has to be confronted wherever and whenever it appears in the sector. The problem is not limited to just private providers, as recent repayment scandals have confirmed. QTI believes there should be consequences for abusing the system. Linguis has been found to have consistently broken several fundamental educational standards, such as allowing widespread plagiarism and failing to moderate their assessments in anything close to a robust manner. They had chances to fix these issues but in the end did not do nearly enough.”

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QTI Co-Chair Kerry Priestley (International Travel College) noted that the process of deregistering Linguis “took longer than we would have liked and it probably took longer than NZQA itself would have liked too. If the same situation developed today, we believe that NZQA would have identified the red flags earlier and acted quicker. Members of Quality Tertiary Institutions have developed far more confidence in NZQA in the last few years after they significantly strengthened their Risk Unit and have shown a greater willingness to pursue poor educational or financial performance across the board. We congratulate them on this development, and would encourage them to go even further in pursuit of providers who are short-changing students and damaging our country’s reputation.”

Crucially, QTI is pleased that the affected students are being looked after and transferred to other, better quality providers. We hope the learners still gain a positive educational experience in New Zealand, despite Linguis.

Notes for Editors: Quality Tertiary Institutions (QTI) is a recognised education industry peak body representing twelve high quality private tertiary providers around New Zealand. QTI members educate over 10,000 learners a year in a diverse number of subjects from foundation to post-graduate level. The organisation’s previous name was Independent Tertiary Institutions (ITI).

ENDS

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