Our Views - The Role of Private Tertiary Education

Private tertiary education makes a contribution in almost every sector of New Zealand's economy and community and has done so for over 150 years. Their role is simply to serve the needs of students, employers, community groups and the wider public.

PTEs developed rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s, shifting from 1-2% of enrolments to 10-15% of enrolments. Many PTEs developed into large, multi-site organisations meeting mainstream education. ITI's members were at the front of that charge, matching high growth with excellent student outcomes.

Many ITI members operate on a similar or larger scale than the public sector in their specialist area, so while they do not have the corporate overheads of a polytechnic, they have more focus on their specialist area.

The government's Statement of Tertiary Education Priorities states that the role of PTEs is to offer niche education and training that augments or complements the provision of the public providers'. The government has limited the PTE sector, first implementing a moratorium on new courses or sites, and then replacing it with caps on enrolments. The government has also set tougher standards for the private sector than for the public sector. PTEs have to justify the quality and relevance of every qualification over 2005-07 if they wish to retain their funding, while public providers only face the same rigour for a few courses.

ITI wants to ensure that when our members demonstrate their quality and relevance, they have a chance to grow on the same basis as any other organisation. With every PTE qualification being checked for quality and relevance over 2005-07, the successful providers expect a fair hearing from the government.

By supporting the role of the private sector, New Zealand will benefit from the innovation that diverse providers can produce. While economies of scale are important in some subjects (such as medicine), the value delivered by diversity more than offsets the smaller size of some ITI members. They will continue to focus on innovation and excellence in tertiary education well into the future.

Key Looks to Private Provision
January 2007

John Key made his state of the nation speech in Christchurch yesterday. Some relevant excerpts from his speech are provided below, but the full version is available here.

Key stated that he wants more "dollars spent on programmes that work, regardless of who thinks them up and who runs them.

"National knows that there are not-for-profit groups, businesses and individuals who have good ideas and who are dedicated to making their communities better places. We know they can often do a better job than the government could ever do."

So I want to turbo-charge the efforts of private and community groups making a difference. I want to change the balance of spending between government and privately-run groups."

"Labour often views non-government providers as its competitors, not its partners...Well, I want to grow the competition. I want to get alongside the amazing groups that make a difference in our communities."

ITI supports the general thrust of John Key's comments, as they align well with our http://www.iti.org.nz/OurMembers/OurKeyPolicies">key policies, especially around government support being based on performance, not ownership.