Bad start for Labour’s Tertiary Ed reforms

new-zealand-national-party

Wed May 23 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Bad start for Labour’s Tertiary Ed reforms

Wednesday, 23 May 2007, 10:50 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Dr Paul Hutchison MP
National Party Tertiary Education Spokesman

23 May 2007

The Auditor-General’s report showing ITP Quality reports on 19 of 20 polytechnics were presented to the NZQA board but not reported on, is indicative of the failings in the system, says National’s Tertiary Education spokesman, Dr Paul Hutchison.

“At a time when Tertiary Education Minister Michael Cullen is introducing his so-called reforms, focusing on quality, it is completely inept of NZQA to not act on the audits they received.

“This failure demonstrates how totally distracted Labour is by creating bureaucracy and central control, rather than actually checking that polytechnics are delivering quality education.”

Auditor-General Kevin Brady says in his report:

‘We wanted to provide assurance to Parliament that the Board of NZQA, having delegated its quality assurance functions for this part of the education system, actively monitors the delegation and ensures there are processes in place so that the Board is informed of any quality issues in the polytechnic sector’.

“Michael Cullen must take responsibility for this failure and must ensure the NZQA board not only reads the auditor’s reports into most of our polytechnics, but actually acts on the findings.

“It is ironic that Labour’s intended ‘reforms’ of the tertiary sector are being stymied by the bureaucracy they are setting out to dismantle.”

ENDS

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