ITI Articles

ITI’s major project at the moment is to maximise the role of PTEs. In a world where Ministers have limited the PTE role through the TES/STEP and the TEC has limited it through their investment guidance, we have to make the most of what we have got.

PTEs do have an ongoing role in the tertiary education system, but there are now few reasons why a policy adviser would include PTEs in a new policy paper – as a subsector, PTEs do not clearly fulfil any of the government’s strategic goals (many individual PTEs do fulfil the government's goals, but policies are generally writen for subsectors). This was reinforced by a recent paper on equity funding prepared by the Ministry of Education. After presenting it to PTE peak bodies and saying how valuable our opinion was, we had to point out that the paper only referred to public institutions!

While such episodes can raise a smile they do present a real problem. Since PTEs are not included in the early stages of discussion, they start several steps behind when it comes to consultation – if you are trying to get “PTE” into a paper, you can’t focus on something more useful.

This environment presents a major challenge to PTEs: if PTEs are to have such a limited role in new initiatives in tertiary education, how will they continue to attract talent, capital and students? If PTEs are prevented from being the innovative organisations that they can be, then their vitality will be sapped.

The challenge is a long term one and reinforced by Dr Cullen’s pre-Budget announcement today on funding for ITPs, wananga and ITOs. They received $127m between them in new funding, which is only a little less than was spent last year on PTE student subsidies. With comparative organisations getting progressively more funding than PTEs (while fees remain capped at the same level for all sectors) PTEs will have to be at their innovative best.

That brings us back to our project. If we want to maximise the role that the government has set for government-funded PTEs, then we have to focus our efforts. The bright spot is that there is now a dedicated investment team in the TEC dealing with PTEs, which will give an opportunity for improved continuity and expertise. Our aim is to work with them and others in the PTE sector to get a combined approach in the spirit of the reforms.

We are currently discussing our approach with our members before putting a proposal to the TEC and other PTE peak bodies. We’ll publish more details in future newsletters.