Industry training savings could fund community ed

News Release
Thursday 16 July, 2009

Industry training savings could fund community education

One of the country’s leading industry training organisations says greater efficiency across the sector could more than fund the proposed cuts in community education courses proposed for next year.

NZITO’s General Manager, Carl Ammon, says that greater efficiency in industry training could save approximately $20 million a year – money which could be reallocated to other education services such as community education programmes.

“We have completed a study into the potential efficiency gains in the industry training sector which we have provided to the Minister of Education, Anne Tolley,” Mr Ammon said.

“The Government rightly says we need to increase productivity through improved infrastructure, innovation and skills training,” said Mr Ammon. “We have developed a system of industry training that upskills workers at approximately half of the costs of a technical institute providing the same training.”

Over the past two years NZITO has developed a system of partnerships between employers and training providers which uses advanced internet systems to deliver industry training. As a result of the savings NZITO was now able to deliver the same outputs of trainees and qualifications with a saving of around $7 million.

“That is less than half the cost of training from other food industry training organisations – and we know there are more savings available. We believe that $20 million could be saved in industry training. That is money that could be diverted to other areas of education, including adult and community education, which would contribute to the Government's goal of increased productivity.

We have presented our findings to the Minister and called on her to take up the challenge to achieve these savings which could then be reallocated to areas where resources are limited.”

Mr Ammon said he had not yet received a response from the Minister but expected to hear from her once she had reviewed the results of NZITO’s study.

ENDS

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