Smellie Sniffs the Breeze on: polytech reforms

Smellie Sniffs the Breeze on: polytech reforms
Education minister Chris Hipkins – is the flagship polytech reform slipping away? (Image: NZME)
Pattrick Smellie
It is now a little under four months since the Tertiary Education Commission lobbed a grenade into the government's polytech reforms, causing considerable alarm in the Beehive.Four years after being announced, two-and-a-half years into implementation and with perhaps $200 million spent, Te Pūkenga was “still very much in its design phase”, TEC said.It was also forecasting a polytech sector-wide deficit of $110 million this financial year, instead of the $59m deficit forecast, and there was no agreed organisational plan.Staff who...

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