Policy & Management

1. PEI Job Losses Job losses are on the cards at New Plymouth’s Practical Education Institute, after the TEC has threatened it with lower funding due to poor completions (and has probably pretty much finalised its decisions). It is sad to see job losses but I’m happy to see TEC taking a hard line over performance across the country. More jobs will be created at other organisations with money reallocated for poor performing organisations.
2. No Raukawa Pay Cut Well, it seems that the Te Wananga O Raukawa CE has not had a pay cut – RNZ has corrected an earlier report. Meanwhile, Tariana Turia wished them well.
3. Flight Training Problems A flight safety consultancy has given advice to the Civil Aviation Authority about safety for trainee pilots. It turns out that there are quite a few deaths and near misses – many more than in the 90s even after correcting for extra training being done.
4. WelTec Precinct WelTec will have some planning certainty under a proposed education precinct by their Petone campus – the proposal will be out for consultation next year.
5. Extras: NMIT Chair Ross Butler is chairing a new AMI-related Crown company (release); Dame Malvina Major joins Waikato staff.

Research & Innovation

1. PM’s Science Prizes The PM’s Science Prizes were announced on Friday (Stuff, idealog, RNZ), with the $500K top award going to a NIWA-Otago Uni team working on climate change (ODT, NZN, Hot Topic, Otago release). Victoria’s Rob McKay won $200K for his work as an emerging scientist on glacial deposits (release, NBR). The $100K science media communication prize went to Canterbury’s Mark Quigley, for his quake work (release). Nina Huang won the secondary student’s $50K prize and will go on to study at Auckland, where she found supervision for a science project this year.
2. Signage Research I love this story about UCOL photographers going on a road trip to check out signage in 43 towns around NZ. I’d love to read the full analysis, if there is one.
3. Robots Auckland Uni’s big robotics study is going to get underway with 31 robots being part of six separate projects at a retirement village. They are doing some seriously interesting stuff.
4. Performance Stunt Auckland’s Chris Harvey is planning a performance work involving people laid off by government or otherwise feeling vulnerable. This will make news next year when it runs.
5. Bar Smoke Otago Uni’s Nick Wilson and Richard Edwards have found that second-hand smoke still gets you at bars even if you stay inside.
6. TV=Dole? AUT’s Erik Landhuis has found that TV watching as a child is correlated with later unemployment.
7. Extras: Victoria’s Devon Polaschek busting psychopath myths (RNZ, NZ Herald); Lincoln-CBRE survey on Christchurch office space; Massey’s Phil Broadhurst has a new jazz album; Otago Uni research cited on male grooming and on alcohol; Massey’s involvement in WW1 history project; Otago Uni’s Peter Saxton has done an HIV survey; Otago Uni’s Bruce Robertson on sealions; Otago Uni’s Prof Brian Cox wants Fonterra research money.

Public Issues

1. Politics Otago Uni’s Bryce Edwards does some interesting analysis of Dunedin South’s voting pattern at the election; AUT’s Prof Rawiri Taonui on Maori party leadership;
2. Extras: Otago Poly’s Jean Ross on community nursing; Auckland’s Charles Clifton on buildings’ earthquake resilience; Otago Uni’s Miles Lamar on Wellington jellyfish; Otago Uni emeritus Prof Air Alan Mark on opencast mining; AUT’s Grant Schofield on living a healthy life; Auckland’s Prof Bill Hodge on a league player’s name suppression; AUT’s Prof Max Abbott on stingy men; Lincoln’s Caroline Saunders mentioned for her role in a climate change roadshow.

Students

1. Otago Fees Homepaddock complains about the Otago Uni-OUSA fees deal (RNZ), which sparked off many comments, while Steven Joyce offered a toothless warning, as he knew this would happen when he set his regulations. Meanwhile, Orientation will have big events at the new covered stadium (release), but will also feature some more academic elements as the Uni exercises its new financial power over the students’ assn.
2. Floods NMIT managed to put together a small graduation for its international students, after floods caused the cancellation of the main event. Meanwhile two Otago Uni students got married regardless of flood complications – here’s a pic of the happy couple.
3. Piper A Japanese student piped herself to her own graduation.
4. Extras: editorial about EIT art graduate exhibition; Auckland hockey player; profile of Victoria scriptwriter; Waikato busker, with kilt; Miss Hawkes Bay off to Massey; Media Design School has four films in a Bondi competition; Auckland student with cochlear implants.

Stakeholders

1. Sculpture Win Auckland’s Michael Parekowhai has won a Queensland sculpture competition. Here’s the Queensland release and the proposal image is below.
2. DHB Support Taranaki DHB offers 24 scholarships worth $85K to health students;
3. Extras: grads of AUT course run by The Heart Foundation; Lincoln award to Margaret Evans; Auckland and AUT jointly hosted the launch of a Pacific book; AUT involvement in Pacific media research website.

Teaching & Learning

1. Extras: UCOL sport students working with primary schools.

Policy & Management

1. Industry Training Drop Labour’s Jacinda Ardern publicises the drop in industry training numbers.
2. VSM Students’ associations preparing for income cut.
3. New ATTTO CE…is Kathy Wolfe, who has been Acting CE.
4. Whitireia Shift Whitireia is shifting into a temporary Kapiti campus until their new campus is ready.
5. Extras: Stuart Middleton redesigns the education system in his lunch hour; project manager on Artena integration at EIT-Tairawhiti.

Research & Innovation

1. Pornography A Marsden Fund grant at Auckland for pornography research has caused a wee stir.
2. Indian Migrants …are the focus of a study by Massey’s Prof Paul Spoonley (Stuff).
3. Pasture Meter Massey’s Ian Yule et al involved in developing a new pasture meter.
4. Coastal Research Waikato is opening a new coastal research field centre – I know Victoria and Auckland have them and I know Otago has a big boat at least, but who else has such a centre?
5. Kids’ Bikes Otago Poly’s Scot Eady has a cool Wellington exhibition about kids’ bikes – have a read.
6. Extras: Auckland’s Hans Edge on Pacific peoples’ hearts and team games; video of Waikato’s solar powered car (release).

Public Issues

1. Elections impact of tertiary education in Dunedin North electorate; Auckland’s Joe Atkinson on Goff’s police allegations; the Canterbury study of election coverage has some interesting results, but I think their apparent lack of correction for size and prominence of story may be a weakness; find out which academics are on TV on Saturday night, while Otago Uni is running its own election TV show; Massey’s Alexander Molchanov finds that elections (and politics) can hurt business; Auckland’s Bill Hodge on the Greens’ Kevin Hague’s Pike River legal action; Massey’s Claire Robinson on John Key (and again, with Auckland’s Joe Atkinson, and both of them on Phil Goff); Te Mana Akonga student voting guide;
2. Rena Waikato’s Prof Chris Battershill on Rena dispersants.
3. Family Violence Auckland’s Janet Fanslow has a NZ herald op-ed on family violence. Otago Uni study on family violence cited.
4. Trademarks Victoria’s Aroha Mead comments on an interesting library software trademark case.
5. Extras: Massey’s Wayne Barrar wins award for art book; Otago Uni academics on the drinking age; Otago/Victoria Uni academics speaking on eco design; Otago and Auckland Uni academics on euthanasia; Canterbury’s Eric Crampton and Auckland’s Tim Hazeldine on privatisation.

Students

1. Grad Shows Massey’s new grads’ fashion is here and here with pictures. Film School graduation in Wellington.
2. Meningitis Auckland’s Nikki Turner on a student vaccination drive.
3. Top Actors Toi Whakaari grads going well in Wellington theatre awards.
4. Extras: disabled people bullied in Nelson, including possibly an NMIT student; Otago Poly tramper rescued; motor racing Canterbury student; hospitality pathways; AUT student model; student film-makers.

Stakeholders

1. Manufacturing Help CPIT and MIT have put together what sound like a great seminar for Christchurch manufacturers.
2. Climate Change A Unitec staffer, Malia Talakai, is becoming a climate change envoy.
3. Extras: profile of Massey’s Sue Prescott; Victoria lecturer’s conviction; Otago Poly’s Matt Carter was a finalist for young exec of the year.

Teaching & Learning

1. Top Salon A New Plymouth salon has been named the top hairdressing training salon by HITO plus 3 Christchurch hairdressers won.

First up, he seems to have taken hook, line and sinker the Labour myth that National destroyed industry training in the 1990s and Labour fixed it – check out the following quote.

“Ideologically, a National-led government could easily shift more training costs to businesses, arguing they benefit from upskilling their staff so they should pay for it. But this was exactly the deeply damaging mistake the Bolger government made with the Industry Training Act of 1992. It radically reformed skills training, leaving only skeletal government support. Quickly, many companies developed a new training culture. Rather than take responsibility themselves, they poached skilled staff from competitors that kept training. As a result, the number of people in formal workplace training plunged and skills shortages became chronic.

Reviving industry training was one of the key planks of Helen Clark’s 1999 election campaign. The Modern Apprenticeship Act of 2002 was one of her government’s first major pieces of legislation. It created Industry Training Organisations, each tasked with developing government-funded programmes for its specific sector.”

Rod’s argument has many errors.

First, ITOs were established by the Industry Training Act 1992, by National, 7 years before Helen Clark gained power.

Second, there was no “skeletal” support for ITOs. They got substantial start-up grants to explore feasibility (which is partly why we ended up with so many ITOs) and then had funding transferred from polytechnics to purchase training. Everyone wants more money, but ITOs were not starved.

Third, workplace training did not plunge due to the Industry Training Act 1992. The table below shows that industry training numbers started falling in the March 1988 year, when Labour was in power. The drop is unsurprising given the huge structural changes being made in the economy, education and in labour markets over that period – an increase would have been surprising. Even though the decline started under Labour, it reached its highest percentage decline in the June 1992 year (the Industry Training Act became law on 22 June 1992, so can’t bear too much blame). The decline continued until the June 1993 year, after which numbers rose the next year.

The rise in workplace training numbers in 1994 was not a one-off. As the table below shows, industry training numbers increased throughout the 1990s, with a 43% (!) increase in the June 1998 year. These tables finish in the December 2002 year, but the numbers continued to increase through the rest of Labour’s 1999-2008 term. If you compare growth in the two nine year terms of National and Labour, trainee numbers went up by around 120% in both periods (NB the tables are sourced from an ITF report, co-authored by now-Labour MP Chris Hipkins). Labour did a great job of branding industry training as their own, but they weren’t unique in their support for the area. Both parties have played an important part in fostering industry training (and in contributing to the long-term focus on participation, rather than achievement, which has recently ended rather badly).

Rod Oram also wrote that ITOs “offer a confusing array of 4600 qualifications at levels one to six”, whereas readers will know that the majority of qualifications are owned by providers, not ITOs.

Rod’s piece has been undermined by some serious errors of fact, but he also makes some boilerplate arguments for better school-work links.

I am supportive of some of Rod’s ending comments. There he points to an important issue: the recently announced industry training review may have a focus that is too narrow.

“Theoretically the review just launched can look beyond industry training to all related areas of vocational training. Two crucial areas are how to better anticipate what new skills need to be taught and how to better co-ordinate the training of ITOs and polytechs. But the review is due to be completed early next year. So it will inevitably be rushed and superficial. It runs the risk of failing to give employees and employers the much-improved systems and resources they urgently need.”

The key parts of Cosgrove’s media release is below.

“When National came into office at the end of 2008, there were 1049 building and construction industry trainees in Canterbury,” Clayton Cosgrove said. “Two years later, in December 2010, the number dropped 45 per cent to 578. That’s staggering.

“The drastic fall-off in industry trainee numbers generally shows a total lack of any skills strategy and a failure to invest in the future by the National Government. Following the quakes Canterbury faces the biggest demand for skills in its history, but you wouldn’t know it from any commitment by the National Government to skills training.

“The number involved in industry training overall in Canterbury has fallen by 5361, or 34 per cent, from 15,687 to 10,326 between December 2008 and December 2010. The fall-off in the building and construction industry is even worse.”

…“No wonder Kiwis are leaving for Australia in droves,” Clayton Cosgrove said. “It’s even harder to keep young people in Christchurch than elsewhere in the country. The situation in the building and construction industry is disastrous. The 40 per cent drop in training nationally coincides with increased demand for housing, which is forecast to spiral upwards.

RNZ covered the issue with Goff fronting for Labour (audio here) and Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce responding that the drop was due to reprioritisation of funding and tightening up on performance, while $42m had also been put aside for Canterbury this year. Then Clearnet had a piece noting TEC’s rationale that economic conditions had also contributed, but that “Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove believes that’s just smoke and mirrors and wants to see more detail”.

Well, Clayton, here’s some detail! I’m grumpy that Labour put out such a ridiculous media release that paid no attention to the fact that the building industry had crashed over the last few years (and employment in general had also declined). They didn’t even bother checking their figures against, say, Statistics NZ. The chart below is drawn from Stats NZ’s report on Value of Building Work Put In Place, March 2011 and it shows how much work has actually been done each quarter on approved building consents (in Sep 1999 prices). As you can see, the figures plunged from December 2007, with a small rally from late 2009 to mid 2010. The December quarter figures for the trend value are $2,413m (07), $2,015 (08), $1,789 (09) and $1,885 (10). Even allowing for the uptick in 2010, there was a 22% decline in the value of work completed from Dec 2007 to Dec 2010. From Dec 2007 to Dec 2009, there was a 26% drop.

Labour is concerned at a 45% drop in construction apprentices in Canterbury, but they haven’t even mentioned the fact that there was a 22% decline in the value of work done in the NZ industry over the last few years. Such a big decline will obviously lead to job losses and reduced willingness by employers to take on apprentices who require extra supervision and training. The hiring of new apprentices will be further reduced by the large pool of qualified workers seeking work, probably willing to take lower than usual wages. I’m quite confident that the large drop in industry turnover will result in a larger drop in apprentice numbers and BCITO’s CE, Ruma Karaitiana, said in the 2009 annual report that “employers generally need to be confident about their businesses moving forward before making commitments to long-term training and employment”.  Even if you don’t agree with that, it is ludicrous for Labour to ignore the economic environment when making their claims.

Cosgrove might suggest that the chart above doesn’t explain why trainee numbers dropped after Dec 2008, rather than Dec 2007,  if industry turnover dropped from Dec 2007. There are two answers to that. First, I could argue that it is normal for employment to lag changes in turnover and that would be a reasonable argument. Second, I could publish figure from BCITO’s 2010 annual report (p. 17) that shows that BCITO figures started plummeting from Dec 2007, when Labour was in power. Personally, I think the second argument is a bit more clearcut, and shows why you shouldn’t rely on politicians to pick a neutral time series for stats.

The charts above show pretty clearly that (a) the construction industry has had a major decline since Dec 2007, which will have had a major impact on industry employment and (b) declines in construction trainees started in 2008, when Labour was in power (BTW I don’t think the decline in the construction industry is directly due to National or Labour). So I think those are pretty strong arguments against Clayton Cosgrove’s claims that the decline is due to a lack of a skills strategy from National.

But even if Cosgrove was right, it is pretty dopey to put out a claim that the situation is disastrous, when less than a week beforehand BCITO announced that there had been well over 300 trainee sign-ups since January 2011 in Canterbury, higher than anywhere else in the country, with 153 trainees in May and June alone. Labour’s figures had 578 trainees in Canterbury at Dec 2010, so the increase is significant. (I also understand that provider-based trades enrolments are up a lot at CPIT.) It is unbelievable that Labour didn’t bother checking out the BCITO’s website before putting out their release, let alone calling the BCITO or simply reading the news.

Why are people signing up for training now? You’d assume it was because there was now clear demand for construction work in Christchurch for the foreseeable future. And that demand is due entirely to earthquakes, not any initiative by National or Labour.

My overall concern isn’t a partisan one. I’d like Labour to be doing a better job as an Opposition because it would make the Government work harder on its policy. But this latest media release by Clayton Cosgrove, with Phil Goff commenting in support, is just shoddy. Tertiary spokesperson David Shearer was lucky to keep out of it.