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Building a more collaborative system

Collaboration among TEOs

The analysis of profiles found an increase in the focus of ITOs on collaboration with other TEOs from 2005/07 to 2006/08. This included working both with other ITOs and with tertiary education providers around the provision of tertiary education. This increase may in part reflect the operationalisation of ITO leadership plans, as well as TEC’s review of overlapping provision (discussed below).

The analysis found that, in both years, 60 percent of ITPs had change-focused objectives around collaboration and networking with other TEOs. These focused on developing programme connections with wānanga and PTEs and staircasing into university programmes. However, working with ITOs was not often mentioned.

From 2005/07 to 2006/08, there was an increased number of universities with change-focused objectives around collaboration and networking with other TEOs. However, these objectives were more generally described than in the ITP sector and were focused more towards university to university linkages.

In both years wānanga had objectives of building relationships with other tertiary providers, including PTEs, ITPs and universities.

Clearer agreements between ITPs and ITOs as a result of review

In 2005, the TEC examined the range of provision in trade training, with a view to identifying areas where there is unnecessary competition or duplication between training funded through the Industry Training fund and training funded through the Student Component fund.

The review resulted in a principle-based agreement between the ITO and ITP sectors, which will underpin future decision-making relating to training in industry. These principles set out good practice standards for ITOs and ITPs to work together to meet the needs of industry, without creating undesirable competition and duplication.

Collaborating with stakeholders

The research on stakeholder engagement with tertiary education providers found that engagement was wide ranging. It varied from well-structured, successful engagement to ad hoc engagement to no engagement at all. Providers generally perceived that their engagement with stakeholder groups was satisfactory and that they were making moderate to substantial contribution to the economic and social goals of stakeholders.

Stakeholders reported much more varied success of engagement and were more often dissatisfied with the level and quality of engagement. The institutional culture and bureaucracy of providers, along with lack of common focus, were commonly reported barriers to engagement. Stakeholders were much less convinced about the contribution providers made to their social and economic goals. The research concludes that successful engagement requires reciprocal relationships, commitment of time and resources from both sides and a common sense of purpose.

Building quality and relevance

Reinvesting in quality provision

The Quality Reinvestment Programme provides $178 million over the next five years to support ITPs and wānanga to achieve alignment of certificate- and diploma-level education with the 2005 STEP and the needs of learners, employers, their communities and New Zealand as a whole.

The funding has come from savings made as a result of restricting the provision of community education and short courses by TEIs. The process aims to ensure that the government obtains value for money from its investment in the tertiary education sector.

The first stage of the programme was providing grants of $250,000 from August 2005 to all ITPs and wānanga to assist with capability development, strategic thinking and analysis, and planning initiatives to support a network of quality and relevant certificate and diploma provision aligned with the STEP.

The second stage was to make grants of $750,000 per institution available to support institutions wishing to undertake early alignment activities that require funding prior to developing a five-year Alignment Plan. As at March 2006, 10 proposals had been received by the TEC, of which two had been approved and the others were in discussion. It was expected that further proposals would be received, following the Minister’s announcements of funding changes.

The third stage will be to provide substantive grants to fund alignment plans of ITPs and wānanga. Alignment Plans may include activities aimed at planning and capability development for, and transition to, a network of sustainable quality and relevant provision and/or funding aligned education and training provision. The Alignment Plans for 2006 and 2007 will be forerunners of the new funding plans to be introduced in 2008 for all providers currently receiving Student Component funding.

Reviewing sub-degree provision for quality and relevance

The TEC has undertaken a number of reviews of areas of provision below degree-level. The most significant review was of provision in Student Component funding categories A1 (sub-degree arts, social sciences and general education) and J1 (sub-degree business and law education). Around 40 qualifications were selected for review. As a result of the review:

• some of these qualifications were withdrawn by the institutions
• some were shown to be able to justify need but not volume and will be scaled down
• cases were identified where further information on learner outcomes was required before a final assessment could be made.

In addition to focusing funding on qualifications with proven quality and relevance, this review has stimulated the institutions to improve their own self-review of these kinds of qualifications. The review has also resulted in measures to limit sub-contracting and out-of-region provision.

Over the three-year period from 2005 to 2007, the TEC is reviewing all Student Component-funded provision at PTEs to ensure it is aligned with the TES and STEP. The purpose of the PTE reviews is to:

• shift funding from areas of low relevance to those of higher strategic relevance within the available funding
• ensure that the Student Component-funded provision is high performing and relevant, meets the educational needs of students and the needs of stakeholders such as industry, complements existing public sector provision and builds on the strengths of PTEs.

In each year, a third of PTE Student Component-funded provision will be assessed.

The TEC also reviewed dive-related provision in 2005.

Building system capacity

The e-Learning Collaborative Development Fund (eCDF) has allocated $28 million worth of funding over four years — from 2003 to 2007. It is designed to improve the tertiary education system’s capability to deliver e-learning that improves education access and quality for learners. Funding for the 2006/07 year covers projects in areas such as information literacy, formative assessment, kaupapa Māori provision and professional development in literacy for adults.

The Innovation and Development Fund aims to foster new and innovative ideas, and to develop TEOs’ capability to improve the operation of the tertiary education system, and to help TEOs align with and deliver on the TES and national goals. Up to $10 million is available each financial year. Funding for the 2006/07 year covered projects in areas such as ‘mechatronics’, school-university partnerships in biological sciences, and a prototyping facility.

Other strategic development funding, mentioned elsewhere in this report, includes:

• Partnerships for Excellence
• ITP Business Links
• Growth and Innovation Pilots
• Design Education.

A more differentiated system

The 2005 STEP reinforced the government’s intent to encourage a more differentiated tertiary education system with clearer role expectations for universities, ITPs, wānanga and PTEs. The rationale for this is to build stronger, more specialised capability within each sub-sector and reduce unnecessary duplication across sub-sectors. Subsequent to this the Ministry of Education and the TEC have been working with sector representatives to build a better understanding of the roles of each sub-sector and ways of strengthening capability and distinctive contribution within sub-sectors.

The analysis of profiles shows increased explicit attention to differentiation of roles within 2006/08 TEI profiles, albeit with a tendency towards greater promotion and prominence of each institution.

A number of ITPs in 2006/08 profiles included objectives around enhancing their reputation as quality providers of vocational education and training and/or centres of excellence in specific areas, nationally and regionally. A number of 2006/08 university profiles included a focus on developing the reputation and recognition of the institution. In the 2006/08 wānanga profiles, the focus was on the distinctive advantages of the wānanga learning environment.

The April 2006 announcements from the Minister for Tertiary Education reinforced the government’s desire for a more differentiated system, where different parts of the sector work together in more complementary ways. This will be a critical feature of the new funding and monitoring arrangements.

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• Table of Contents

• The State of Play

• Cross Strategy Indicators

• Raise foundation skills

• Skills for our knowledge society

• Strengthen research and knowledge creation

• Te rautaki mātauranga Māori

• Pacific people’s development and success

• Capability and quality

• Technical and Data Definitions