Jeremy Baker (Industry Training Federation Executive Director ) and Paul McElroy (UCOL CE, speaking on behalf of NZITP) were on Nine to Noon this morning (listen at Radio NZ).

Jeremy made some strong points about overdelivery of graduates and qualifications in some industries and an underdelivery of graduates in others. He claimed that the average cost of a completion at an ITP was $20,000 to the taxpayer and $5,000 to the student – not having seen the figures, I’d say he’s about right, given the relatively low qualification completion figures across the sector. It is an interesting extension of the ITF’s work last year and a continuation of their evidence-based policy work.

Paul didn’t bring any numbers to the table, but largely shifted the debate towards whether students’ enrolment decisions should be countermanded by industry. He suggested that if students didn’t enrol in a course, their alternative would be unemployment. He also said that it was the responsibility of industry to ensure students were attracted to courses that led to employment, which seems quite a cop-out to me – providers should be making professional choices not just about what will attract students, but what will be useful to those students, industry and the wider society.

Overall, it was hard to follow Paul’s arguments and he came over as someone protecting his patch, rather than arguing how conflicting stakeholder priorities could be managed. I’m not saying that the ITF doesn’t have an agenda to protect its members, but they make arguments that appeal to a wider audience and are based on the numbers. A clear points victory on this one to the ITF, and with the government pushing for value for money, ITPs and other providers will need to make stronger arguments.