1 March 2018

Hipkins making things harder for polytechs

Removing competitive funding is the latest decision made by the Education Minister to exacerbate the challenges faced by our polytech sector, National’s Tertiary Education spokesperson Paul Goldsmith says.

“By removing competitive funding Mr Hipkins is not only stifling innovation in our polytechnic institutes, he is failing to acknowledge the damaging impact that his fees-free and international student policies will have on the sector.

“Mr Hipkins is giving $2.8 billion to the tertiary education sector but not a dollar of that is going into helping our polytechnics with funding pressures.

“Spending all of this extra investment on free tertiary education for students will do nothing to improve the situation for polytechnics. In fact, with no money left to spend on supporting polytechnics, it will actually make things worse.

“At the same time, the uncertainty that Mr Hipkins has allowed to develop over international students will also be threatening an important revenue stream for our polytechnics.

“The future of our polytech sector has never been so uncertain. Rather than trying to tell us that removing competitive funding will somehow address all their challenges, Mr Hipkins would do better to acknowledge that it is his own policies that risk driving the sector into the ground.”

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