Thanks to all of the people who replied to my post yesterday questioning a rumoured shake-up of export education marketing. I received all sorts of info from education providers across different sectors, but several have made the following points.

• Education NZ had a special board meeting this week, attended by Steven Joyce, Minister for Tertiary Education.
• On the agenda was the likely disestablishment of Education NZ and a proposed new Crown entity to manage export education.
• The export education levy will stay, but will largely go to the new Crown entity (I guess the Code of Practice management will stay with the MOE).
• Both the Minister and the industry will have a say in appointing the Crown entity board (in practical terms, I guess that means the Minister calling for industry nominations).

I haven’t received any info on the rationale for the changes, but I guess it’s a way to:

1. consolidate activities currently spread across Education NZ and MOE (the placement, and role, of the education counsellors might be an issue here);
2. create a clear split between policy and marketing, which may have been blurred within the MOE’s international education group (NB that’s not a criticism, just pointing out that their primary role and focus is in policy, but they also had to deal with marketing issues); and
3. giving export education promotion a stronger voice at the table when talking with officials (Education NZ’s CE Rob Stevens has long had such a voice, but a Crown entity head might have more institutional clout).

There’s a lot more water to go under the bridge with this issue and obviously the intention was to make a formal announcement rather than have me do it, but it is pretty hard for the government to essentially seek to nationalise an industry body without having some leakage. While this is, in essence, a nationalisation, Education NZ has thrived with its core funding coming from a government-mandated and directed industry levy, and it is more accountable to the MOE than it is to individual education providers, because the core funding comes via the MOE (again, not a criticism, but a description of the incentive structure). Given that situation, I’d expect that the change will probably go through fairly smoothly with muted industry concerns, if the case is well made.