Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
A Cabinet paper reveals reestablishing independent polytechnics will cost more than 500 courses and about 1000 jobs.
The March paper from Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds said polytechnics had started to act on financial improvement plans that would ensure they were viable when they were cut free from super-institute Te Pūkenga.
"Polytechnics have begun implementing their financial improvement plans, which as of late 2024 indicated reductions of approximately 550 programmes, up to 900 FTE and approximately 30 delivery sites," it said.
"The final model for work-based learning will also change the spread of training provision between polytechnics, wānanga and private providers. It would be premature to commit to long-term plans to support important provision when there is potential for delivery to look very different once these processes are completed."
The paper said the government would set aside $20 million to ensure the retention of strategically important, but potentially unviable courses.
"I intend to review support for strategically important provision in the second half of 2026, including long-term options to support the organisations that provide it and how to incentivise delivery of the provision that regions need, through either polytechnics, Wānanga, or private providers who may be able to fill gaps," the paper said.
The paper also said using $6.5m from a special funding category aimed at supporting Māori and Pacific students to boost government subsidies for polytech courses generally could have a negative effect.
"Tertiary education organisations may see the removal of the Māori and Pacific learner criteria from the Learner Component as a signal that programmes tailored to support these learners are no longer needed and can be substituted with more generic student support programmes. This may negatively impact on Māori and Pacific learner outcomes."
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sandra Grey told RNZ's Nine to Noon it was the first time the full scale of the cuts had been revealed.
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sandra Grey. Photo: Supplied
"This is the first time we've seen it in black and white. We've been feeling it every week as each institution tries to right-size so that it can cope with the minister's vision for them.
"To see 500 jobs going in black and white is really hard for the sector."
Grey said the changes would remove vocational education and training from some communities altogether.
The government recently announced nine of the 16 polytechnics that joined Te Pūkenga would emerge as stand-alone institutes next year. Three of the remaining institutes would join a federation, with the fate of four others yet to be decided.
Simmonds said in a statement: "The Cabinet paper confirms the scale of change required to re-establish a financially viable and regionally responsive vocational education network. The paper you are referring to is an early piece of advice and there were several updates made."
She said the government had asked the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) work with Te Pūkenga to assist all polytechnics to review their operations, "an exercise that should have happened five years ago when Te Pūkenga was set up, to ensure the viability of the polytechnic sector".
"As the minister, I am not privy to information regarding the operational decisions that polytechnics might contemplate. However, I would suggest that it is important for all polytechnics to be taking appropriate actions to ensure their overall viability and maintain their relationships.
"We are absolutely committed to maintaining and improving access to vocational education across the regions. $20m has been secured from TEC to support provision in strategic regions and strategic delivery. Our goal is to give each polytechnic the autonomy to tailor provision to the needs of their region - something the old centralised model simply didn't allow."
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