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National | Education

Te Pūkenga merger 'shambolic' - National

In 2020 then Education Minister Chris Hipkins released a proposal that would see all 16 polytechnics merge into one organisation under the entity Te Pūkenga.

Three years on and the entity has been described as "shambolic" by National's education spokesperson Penny Simmonds.

“It's been going for three years, so I don't know how much more time they need. It's getting a bit ridiculous," Simmonds says. "And it's just awful for staff being left with that level of uncertainty."

Education Minister Jan Tinetti says she will not give teaomāori.news a time frame "other than say we've waited for too long now; we've had two years where I've shared my frustrations around the fact that not a lot happened in that time."

But Simmonds says the entity still doesn't have an operating model and is hurting New Zealand's vocational sector.

“How can they keep appointing these highly paid head office people when they don’t know what their model is and whether it is going to be sustainable?


Is Te Pūkenga working?

"Staff morale is at an all-time low, student enrolments have plummeted by ten per cent, and the organisation is looking down the barrel of a $63 million deficit."

Tinetti says the deficit was predicted "and the fact is if we hadn't done these changes then it would have been a much worse deficit. I don’t like hearing staff morale is down and I am aware that that is the case.”

The government has already invested $200 million into the project but it is estimated that cost will double.

“Of course, everything around Te Pūkenga from now on is subject to budget so I'm not going to go into that but we need to make certain that model is operating well. Having said that, I think we would be very cautious about putting more money into Te Pūkenga,” Tinetti says.

“It's expecting another $423 million and that was over the next five years. We know that previously it tried to get a billion over ten years but that had been knocked back, so it won’t be the last request for funding if it keeps going,” Simmonds says.

A staff satisfaction survey emerged last week showing a third of staff saw no future at Te Pūkenga, while the vast majority surveyed would not recommend working there to whānau and friends.