Will ACE redundancies cost more than the ACE cuts?

new-zealand-labour-party

Thu Sep 17 2009 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Will ACE redundancies cost more than the ACE cuts?

Thursday, 17 September 2009, 2:41 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party

17 September 2009
Media Statement

“I hope Anne Tolley thinks the cuts to Adult and Community Education are worth it once the redundancies start biting,” says Maryan Street, Labour’s Tertiary Education Spokesperson.

“After questioning in the House this week, it is clear that Mrs Tolley has opened up a can of worms with her cuts to night classes which goes even beyond the anger and disbelief of the 200,000 people who enrol in a night class every year,” said Maryan Street.

“First, Mrs Tolley said the employer had to pay for redundancies and she said that means the schools in this instance. But the schools are not parties to the collective agreement which sets out their terms and conditions. The parties are the Education Secretary and the PPTA.

“Then she said that the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) would provide advice to those schools which sought it. Their advice so far seems to have been that schools should not run their ACE programmes in term 4 of this year so they can use that money to pay for redundancies.

“But the schools’ funding contracts with the TEC say that they can only use the money for the purposes for which it has been appropriated, namely the running of ACE programmes, not the payment of redundancy.

“If the schools can not use the money they are given for a different purpose from that for which it was appropriated, should the Ministry of Education be liable for redundancy payments, seeing they at least are a party to the collective agreement?

“Is it worth the effort Mrs Tolley? What if redundancy settlements for 212 ACE coordinators and 15,000 tutors begins to look like the amount saved through the cuts?” asked Maryan Street.

“Why not save everybody the grief and just reinstate the funding, Mrs Tolley?”

ENDS

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