4 December 2001 Media Statement

Maharey – business community must engage in the development of the Tertiary Education Strategy

Associate Education (Tertiary Education) Minister Steve Maharey told the Top Exporters Conference in Wellington today that it was time for the business community to engage with the Government, and other stakeholders within the tertiary education sector and the community at large, in developing a Tertiary Education Strategy.

“New Zealand needs a tertiary system that is outwardly focused on the world, able to meet the future development needs of our nation and distinctively ‘New Zealand’ in its style and tone.
“We need a system that is ‘connected’ to New Zealand’s national development goals, and ‘connected’ with other sectors of society and the economy.

“One of the key change propositions that will feature in the draft Tertiary Education Strategy will be the need to build Stronger linkages with business and other external stakeholders.

“We must ensure that the tertiary system is responsive to the skill and research needs of the economy and society,” he said.
Steve Maharey said that this was where the business community in particular has a key role to play.

“This strategy cannot be a strategy of and for providers. It must be a strategy that is quite explicitly informed by the needs of end users – students in an immediate sense to a degree, but in a more developmental sense, the needs of stakeholders within the real economy.

“One often hears in politics the refrain, ‘put up or shut up’. Let me clear, I don’t want you to shut-up, far from it, but I do want the business community to ‘put up’. It is, to paraphrase a well-known retailer, the ‘putting up that counts’,” Steve Maharey said.

ENDS

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