Bradford's meddling responsible for $160,000 pay

Thursday, 23 September 1999, 2:05 pm
Press Release: Alastair Thompson

Bradford's Meddling directly responsible for $160,000 pay out

Liz Gordon MP Thu Sep 23 1999

Max Bradford must take full responsibility for the payout to the CEO of the NZ Qualifications Authority because he allowed him an excuse to go with a $160,000 golden handshake.

'The tertiary white paper was to set up another body, the Quality Assurance Authority of NZ (QUAANZ) as a recognition that the NZQA was not doing its job. The government should have got the NZQA board to fire Blackmuir when it was clear he was underperforming rather than doing this.

'The creation of QUAANZ was the excuse Douglas Blackmuir needed to get a golden handshake when should have been fired over not instituting sufficient quality assurance mechanisms at NZQA.

'Now we have no QUAANZ, a crippled NZQA, a $160,000 pay out and the Minister is blaming everybody else.

'The government appointed Neil Waters as the chair of the NZQA. They were supposedly monitoring his and the NZQA's progress through out. The Minister of education had regular meetings with Douglas Blackmuir. Why was nothing picked up before it all went sour?

'The NZQA is the only body that is responsible for ensuring the quality of our tertiary education system. It has failed in this job.

'There is now no body that can responsibly guarantee the quality of our tertiary education system. This is not a problem in the established public institutions such as universities and polytechnics as they have a good track record. But the recent proliferation of fly by night private training institutions is a real worry.

'Despite no guarantee of quality this government is hell bent on giving these private business more education dollars.

'Just last month Max Bradford announced that private training institutions would get a crack at the $1.1 billion previously only going to public institutions.

'This is madness when we have no guarantee of their quality. Max Bradford clearly doesn't have any understanding of tertiary education. That was evident when he suggested axing four universities and is become even more so now,' Liz Gordon said.

ENDS

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Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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