Freeze on new Short Awards to be lifted

3 August 2006

Freeze on new Short Awards to be lifted

The current moratorium on the approval of new short courses* is to be lifted from 1 August 2006 the Tertiary Education Commission announced today.

A moratorium was placed on new Short Awards in July last year while the TEC investigated how these qualifications should be funded in order to meet industry and government objectives.

“Following consultation with the sector and government agencies, it become clear that options for the long-term future funding of Short Awards needed to be considered within the wider reform process,” TEC Policy and Advice Acting Group Manager James Turner says.

“Because this work has now been incorporated into the wider tertiary sector reforms it was decided to lift the freeze on new short course qualifications. The funding cap will remain in place, however, until the next steps in the tertiary education reforms are finalised.”

The $22.7m a year cap was placed on Short Awards last July to limit growth while decisions about future funding arrangements were made. In order to manage this cap, public policy and first aid Short Awards no longer attract government funding as they were identified as areas more appropriately funded privately (as had been the case until a few years ago).

All new Short Award qualifications will be required to go through an approval process to ensure they meet quality standards as well as industry and government priorities.

Further work by the TEC on Short Awards will include issues such as what type of provision should be publicly funded, which government budgets should subsidise certain types of awards, who should pay for those courses, or parts of those courses that are unsubsidised.,

* Short Course or awards are worth less than 40 credits on the National Qualifications Framework or equate to approximately one third of and Equivalent Full Time Student (EFTS)

ENDS

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