Come clean on apprenticeship failures, Dr Cullen

new-zealand-national-party

Mon Apr 16 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Come clean on apprenticeship failures, Dr Cullen

Monday, 16 April 2007, 11:39 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Colin King MP
National Party Associate Education Spokesman

16 April 2007

The Government continues to dodge questions on how many modern apprentices are failing, says National's Associate Education spokesman, Colin King.

"Modern apprenticeship coordinators are expected to meet government standards of a 75% successful completion rate, yet Tertiary Education Minister Michael Cullen refuses to reveal whether that is happening.

"Before Dr Cullen begins boasting about his 4,000th completed modern apprenticeship he must justify the $100 million of taxpayers' money spent on the scheme by supplying reliable data on the success rate.

"If it is all too hard for him, National is happy to show him how he can both measure and monitor the scheme with efficiency and transparency.

"The coordinators know how many of their apprentices are failing and the $2000- per-apprentice payment must be made dependent on them providing proof of how many are no longer in the scheme.

"It is totally irresponsible for this Government to glibly claim they don't know the number of failures, when there are only 48 coordinators nationally.

"The Government wants 14,000 apprentices in the scheme by next year, which is an increase of 5,000 and will put a further $10 million in the coordinators' pockets. Add the standard training measure made to polytechs of $16 million and you would expect some accountability.

"If the success rate is as bad as we suspect, this has been an expensive exercise. Dr Cullen needs to justify the $100 million dollar expenditure of taxpayers' money".

ENDS

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