Tertiary education Bill passes first reading

The Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill has today passed its first reading in Parliament, says Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Paul Goldsmith.

“This Bill will help the tertiary education system run more efficiently, ensure quality, and provide additional student protection,” Mr Goldsmith says.

“The Bill proposes a more balanced and flexible funding approach to ensure that providers can focus on delivering better outcomes for students, while still retaining appropriate accountability and monitoring mechanisms.

“It strengthens the monitoring of tertiary education organisations in response to recent investigations, for example by requiring providers to maintain records of their use of public money, and enhancing the TEC’s ability to monitor activities such as overseas education provision not funded by the Government.

“It will also provide for a level playing field between providers, whether they be publicly or privately owned, including requiring funding to be provided at the same rate for the same provision. This better reflects current practice and is the fair thing to do,” says Mr Goldsmith.

In addition, the Bill makes a number of changes around student protection, including:

· Extending the Export Education Levy to cover both private and partnership schools;
· Enable schools to manage international student misconduct outside of school hours, to better protect students’ health, safety, and wellbeing;
· Holding providers to account for falsely awarding credits, by allowing NZQA to pursue action against offending providers.

The Bill will now be considered by the Education and Science Select Committee.

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