News 26/5 – Wira Gardiner Confirmed; Goff a Patron Saint?

May 26th 2010 at 7:49am, By Dave Guerin

Wira Confirmed Steven Joyce yesterday confirmed the appointment of Sir Wira Gardiner to the TEC Chair role, for a 3 year term. The ODT did a short story on it.
Off to Space Susan Krumdieck, from the University of Canterbury is joining a team to work on the next generation of hypersonic vehicle, able to travel at Mach 10-15. And no, it’s not part of some madcap IPO, but a US-based initiative funded by NASA and the US Airforce. Rather than building a plane, she and others will be focusing on the underlying materials and concepts.
Vic-Massey Music The joint Massey and Victoria music school remains on the drawing board. A Dominion Post story today pins the problem on the Government for not backing up a Labour promise, but the funding for the school, both government and otherwise, seemed in doubt well before the last election. NZPA has also done a story on Vic’s latest annual report.
Goff’s Legacy Labour MP Raymond Huo has written about how last week’s Budget has not helped Kiwi-Asian families, but also notes that Phil Goff introduced the bill that allowed for international students to be charged fees, the start of a major new industry. I think he’s right about Phil Goff introducing that Bill, but I wouldn’t put him up as a patron saint of export education, an industry which has roots 20+ years before that.
BCITO Outward Bound 4 of BCITO’s specialist trade (ie non-carpentry) apprentices will be off to Outward Bound after winning scholarships from the ITO.
Growing Food NorthTec runs a network of courses around Northland teaching people how to grow food for themselves and commercially – there’s a nice release here explaining what they do.