Te Pūkenga – how it all went wrong

Penny Simmonds is the MP for Invercargill and former chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology.

The Government’s merged mega polytechnic is in trouble and it doesn’t bode well for vocational education in Southland, or across the country.

Launched in 2019, Education Minister Chris Hipkins first announced his plans to bring together the country’s 16 Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics under the Te Pūkenga umbrella.

He claimed his reforms would improve outcomes for students and reduce polytechnic debt – but none of this has happened.

Instead, two and a-half years on and we’re worse off, with the sector now facing twice the debt it had prior to restructuring, enrolments in decline and staff uncertainty leading to resignations, which the Tertiary Education Union estimates to be as high as 16 percent of staff.

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A May memo from the Tertiary Education Commission outlined major concerns with Te Pūkenga including its forecast $110 million deficit for this year – $53.5 million more than budgeted.

So where did it all go wrong?

Much of the blame must be laid with the minister, who from the outset failed to listen to the concerns of experienced senior staff, ignored Treasury advice that Te Pūkenga’s finances were risky and then allowed its head office to spend recklessly and operate without direction.

Too many bureaucrats, hell bent on pursuing an ideological, aspirational vision, rather than focusing at a practical level, has certainly not helped.

NZ needs good tertiary education. There are labour shortages across the country and we must have quality vocational training to address them – Te Pūkenga has so far failed to deliver.

Millions of dollars have been wasted, debt levels have skyrocketed and now the minister is asking regional institutes to tighten their belts.

There are also rumours swirling that there will be up to 600 redundancies at local polytechnics by Christmas, although the minister has not admitted this.

In the meantime, Te Pūkenga head office, and its 180 bureaucrats, this week trumpeted that they’d just made $8 million in savings. This is a pitiful amount considering its $110 million deficit, while the minister seems happy to sacrifice teaching staff in the regions.

Last week further criticism was levelled at Te Pūkenga, and the minister, with past Otago Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker accusing Chris Hipkins of turning the country’s polytechnic education system into “a national disgrace”.

In Southland, the future of the Southern Institute of Technology also looks uncertain with the successful zero fees model increasingly under threat, despite promises from the minister that this would never happen.

This leaves unresolved issues around SIT’s significant reserves and the fact that when the zero fees scheme was formed it received one-off start-up funding from the Southland community to achieve broad regional development objectives.

I have highlighted my concerns to media up and down the country, asked questions of the minister in select committee and in the House, including twice last week.

I intend to keep the pressure on him because I want to stand up for vocational education and fight for the future of SIT and all that it means for Southland.