Hon Bill English
National Party Education Spokesman

27 July 2006

More paper, more bureaucrats, no more money

National Party Education spokesman Bill English says students will lose out from Labour’s new tertiary education reforms.

“Labour’s move to drop student-centred tertiary funding hands tertiary education back to the bureaucrats and Labour politicians who made the mess in the first place.

“Dr Cullen has announced a complex new system with more planning and bureaucrats to create strategies, plans and monitoring. As he says himself ‘planning will be the key concept here’.

“We’ve had seven years of planning, and the system is in worse shape than ever.

“This is all about the Government cleaning up its own mess at the expense of student choice and flexibility.

“Labour has proven itself to be a reckless administrator of the tertiary system, overseeing massive blowouts in low-quality courses and no strategy to change it.

“Why should we believe the same people who have created the mess will now turn around and suddenly become expert planners who will get everything right?

“Every tertiary institution thinks they will get more funding out of the new system, but the Cabinet paper states there will be no more money than is spent now.

“This new system will be expensive to run, meaning that the increased costs will be covered by reduced funding for students.

“Dr Cullen doesn't need wholesale change to stop the rorts in the system, he just needs to focus on enforcing some simple rules about course quality,” says Mr English.

ENDS

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