ITI Articles

ITI members have committed to an extra effort on the tertiary education reforms, recognising how big an impact the reforms will have over the next few years. With most policy staff from the TEC, NZQA and MoE working on the reforms, members feel that it is essential that ITI puts in extra resources to support their involvement in consultation processes. Members have just approved an extra financial contribution to ITI and also committed staff time to specific projects. ITI has also been active in PTE-TEC consultation meetings, contributing papers on the distinctive contribution of PTEs and a general response to the tertiary education reforms.

The distinctive contribution of the PTE subsector is at the heart of the reforms for PTEs, and we have spent a lot of time and effort on getting the approach right, to find a solution that both accurately describes what the PTE sector does and also aligns with the government's approach. One of the key ideas that we have been working with is that PTEs are established by groups and individuals to meet specific needs and that those needs shape PTEs' governance, management and academic processes. That approach can complement the broad approach taken by TEIs to meet stakeholder needs.

ITI also distributed an initial response to the reforms to officials and other PTE peak bodies and we hope to publish a revised version in our next newsletter. The first part of that paper focussed on consultation and we are pleased that the TEC has agreed to most of our suggestions, especially since the government's earlier approach to consultation was a major criticism in our last newsletter. We acknowledge that the latest stage of the reforms has involved much more open discussion and debate.