Education Directions
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WITTling Down
February 5th 2010 at 9:33am, By Dave Guerin
Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT) needs to generate a surplus of 3% of revenue this year and next if they are to bed down their debt writeoff, according to the Taranaki Daily News. With a drop of $2.2m in funding next year after one-off funds end, WITT has started consultation with staff – it is looking at enrolment increases, fee increases and staff reductions.
As I wrote earlier in the week, the funding crunch for ITPs this year will be tough as they got a lot of extra money in this investment plan cycle that was targeted at transition or simply covering losses, whereas the Government now wants to fund results, rather than organisations. ITPs like WITT will have to make a strong case to make one-off funds into baseline, while fending off a sceptical TEC and Ministers, and other sectors putting up their own cases for the money (eg PTEs arguing for equal funding, universities arguing for research and quality provision, and ITOs arguing for productivity). My guess is that the government will keep the financial pressure on ITPs during this year, but I don’t see them (yet) going as far as they have with DHBs by implementing a forced common services model.
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- Tags: ITPs
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2 Responses to WITTling Down
Darel Hall
February 5th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
How do you sell reduced services to a regional community? Tai Poutini, for example, states that it opened in Greymouth in 1990 with 90 students. It now boasts 3,000 students at Greymouth and at specialist campuses in Wanaka, Auckland, Hokitika, Reefton, Westport and Christchurch.
Last census, the West Coast region had just over 31,000 people.
How many regions can this (any) government upset before it starts to lose electorates, and is it willing to do that? I look at the last government’s school network review backdown.
Dave Guerin
February 6th, 2010 at 9:29 am
I think some other issues are also relevant here, using Tai Poutini as an example. First up, Tai Poutini doesn’t serve 3,000 students on the Coast, but the money it makes from its non-Coast activities supports its work on the Coast. Second, I’m not sure that there is an automatic link between funding and enrolments – you can also change your costs and your delivery processes. Third, Tai Poutini’s main issue is that the last government’s policy of staying within your region still has a strong influence – if their hands weren’t tied in that way, they’d probably be fine (would create challenges for others that are protected in their regions now).