The first thing I found was information provided by the Tertiary Education Commission, showing that industry training has been cut by 31,000 places in the past two years. This amounts to cuts of around $146 million.
YMCA national chief executive Ric Odom said it would receive $370,000 less in funding because of TEC cuts of 14% this year and Salvation Army social services director Major Campbell Roberts said employment training was being pushed further into crisis after a five-year funding freeze.
But there's worse to come. In 2014 NZQA will implement new entry criteria limiting University entry to only those with NCEA Level 3 and above. The list of approved subjects for Level 3 credits will also be changed, which will make 8% of students ineligible for higher education.
National have clearly not increased Varsity places. However according to their website; "increases in funding for university and polytechnic places in the past two years have resulted in an increase of core places by 11,600 more than in 2008." Perhaps that's what lead Tau Henare to abuse Moana Mackey in his idiotic tweet.
So who is telling the truth? The 2009 Budget announced many funding reductions for education:
Universities (PDF).
- The domestic status and fees exemption for French and German students on Masters degrees will be removed from 2010.
- Funding for the Encouraging and Supporting Innovation element will be halved from 2010.
- Priorities for Focus funding for universities will be discontinued from 2011 (including the academic migrant grant).
- The Tripartite Adjustment Fund (part of the TEI Base Investment) will be disestablished from 2011.
- ACE funding for TEIs will be reduced by 50% for lower priority ACE from 2011. It is not yet determined how this reduction will be implemented.
- Contracts for Building Research Capacity in Social Sciences expire in 2009 and will not be renewed.
- Special supplementary grants for special education will be disestablished from 2011.
- Refugee Study Grants will be disestablished from 2011.
- Academic Migrant Grants will be disestablished from 2011.
- Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarships will be disestablished after the May 2009 scholarship round. Existing scholarships will be honoured.
- Adult Literacy Educator Grants will be significantly reduced and re-prioritised from 2010.
- The tertiary education capital investment fund is disestablished with immediate effect.
- From 2011, funding will be discontinued for short regulatory compliance and health and safety courses.
- Funding for the Encouraging and Supporting Innovation element will be halved from 2010
- Planned baseline growth for Intensive Literacy and Numeracy Provision (previously Foundation Learning Pool) will be removed, as well as a decrease in the existing baseline from 2009/10.
- LLN embedded in mainstream ITP provision increases in 2009/10 but further baseline growth is removed.
- ACE funding for TEIs will be reduced by 50% for lower priority ACE from 2011. It is not yet determined how this reduction will be implemented.
- Targeted Education and Training Grants will be disestablished. No further grants will be made from 2010, but existing grants will be honoured.
- Special supplementary grants for special education will be disestablished from 2011.
- Bilingual Tutor Grants will be disestablished from 2010.
- Skill Enhancement will be disestablished from 2010.
- The tertiary education capital investment fund is disestablished with immediate effect.
- Adult Literacy Educator Grants will be significantly reduced and re-prioritised from 2010.
- In 2010 all school ACE funding will be replaced with a new approach that reinvests approximately 20% of current school-based ACE funding towards refocused priority areas, such as literacy and numeracy. It is likely that there will be only a small number of schools receiving ACE funding for 2010 and beyond.
- The ACE Innovation and Development Fund will be disestablished in 2010. There will be no further funding rounds for this fund.
- The Community Learning Aotearoa New Zealand fund will be disestablished in 2010. There will be no further funding rounds for this fund.
- There will be a 50% increase in learner places in the Workplace Literacy Fund in 2009/10. Further planned growth is removed and the baseline falls in 2011/12.
- Planned baseline growth for Intensive Literacy and Numeracy Provision (previously Foundation Learning Pool) will be removed, as well as a decrease in the existing baseline from 2009/10.
- The Pathfinders programme will be disestablished from 2010.
- Targeted Education and Training Grants will be disestablished. No further grants will be made from 2010, but existing grants will be honoured.
- Funding for the ESOL Assessment Service will cease from 2010.
- Skill Enhancement will be disestablished from 2010.
- Adult Literacy Educator Grants will be significantly reduced and re-prioritised from 2010.
- Funding for the ITO strategic leadership component will be halved from 2011.
- Some planned growth in literacy funding in Industry Training will be removed.
And then there's the Adult Literacy and numeracy funding for 2008/09, which was $43.9 million while it's projected to be $39.6 million for 2012/13. A reduction of $4.3 million incl GST. Budget 2009 also stated that the Community Learning Aotearoa New Zealand fund for Adult and Community Education will be disestablished from 2010, but some of these cuts were delayed until this year.
Budget 2010 made a few slight improvements, but did not address the huge cuts made in budget 2009. Instead Budget 2010 delivers an increase in the price the Government pays for each student place funded through the SAC (student achievement component). Effectively it's costing a lot more per position and they're counting the money they've reallocated as new spending.
Budget increases in 2010 and 2011 don't even match inflation for those years. Budget 2010 even reduced funding of Industry Training Organisation (PDF) funding to only $1 million.
Increasing international promotion of New Zealand education by $30 million has little effect on creating further placements. That's about the only budget increase worth mentioning. Everything else is just National spin.
Further highlights of National's education funding failure:
- The Annual Maximum Fee Movement will allow tertiary education providers
to increase fees for all Government-funded courses by up to 4% in 2012.
- Removing the entitlement for part-time full-year students to borrow course-related costs.
- Restricting borrowing for those 55 years and over to cover tuition fees only.
- Restricted loan eligibility for borrowers with overdue repayment obligations of $500 or more for one or more years
- Funding for industry training will reduce by $57.7m over 4 years ($11.5 million in 2012/13 and $23.1 million in 2013/14 and outyears) in response to a decline in demand, under-delivery and the TEC’s operational review.
So the net effect of the maximum additional funding for training people to rebuild Christchurch and the Budget 2009 cut for industry training is a cut of $15.7 million.Budget 2011 will provide up to $42 million for trades training for the Canterbury region, Tertiary education Minister Steven Joyce says. Funding is being set aside for up to 1500 additional training places as part of a comprehensive cross-agency response to meet additional demand for labour for the reconstruction programme called “Skills for Canterbury”.
Budget 2011 cut industry training funding from $180 million in the previous Budget to $156 million in the year starting on July 1 and $139 million a year from 2013. That's some serious cuts when many industries have been crying out for well trained workers.
I haven't even mentioned cuts to ECE and Anne Tolley's stupid National Standards policies. But what I have shown is that Nact is gutting the education system, there's no two ways about it.
