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.

1. Climate of Freedom Auckland Uni’s Chris de Freitas and Otago Uni’s Prof Keith Hunter face off in the NZ Herald over climate change and what would be taught to first years. Sounds big but in reality it’s a bit boring.
2. Snow Day CPIT, Canterbury and Lincoln were closed yesterday for snow, as were Otago Uni’s Christchurch campus, Otago Polytechnic (at 10.30am) and Aoraki Polytechnic’s Oamaru campus. CPIT is closed again today, while Canterbury reopens at 11am and Lincoln at noon.
3. Unitec’s New Campus Unitec’s new North Shore campus is ready to open – I might go to the formal opening this week.
4. Dopey Labour A couple of years after it happened, Labour has picked up on the decline in construction apprentices and is saying it will constrain Christchurch’s rebuild. Unfortunately for them they announced it in the same week that BCITO announced an increase in Christchurch apprentices this year, but the main problem is that apprentices went down because there were no jobs for them – after a huge property boom, there was a bust, and building consents have been plunging ever since then.
5. IT Ideas ComputerWorld interviews Auckland’s Prof John Hosking, soon to head off to ANU, on IT teaching. Well worth a read.
6. Long-term Contraceptives…are leading to lower abortion rates, according to Otago Uni’s Sally Rose Beverley Lawton (media release).
7. Bowerman School Long-term Wellington fashion educator Sue Bowerman was profiled in the Dom Post at the weekend.
8. No Quake Escape Dunedin authorities have been so negative to a Canterbury student jaunt that it has been cancelled.
9. Top Website Waikato’s Science Learning Hub website has won a TUANZ award (TUANZ).
10. Top Scaffolder A Tai Poutini Polytechnic student has been named top student scaffolder of the year.
11. NZUSA Changes NZUSA is planning to shift from two presidents to one and employ an executive director.
12. Crime Centre The Victoria crime centre has gained support from sector expert Kim Workman, while RNZ covered the wider story.
13. Fashion EIT is launching a fashion design course at its Tairawhiti campus. Fashion show by CPIT students (and entries for a national fashion competition are closing soon.
14. No Takers A CRI couldn’t give away scholarships to Maori university students.
15. Short Bits UCOL: nursing students raising money for sick boy. AUT: Prof Nigel Hemmington and Prof Simon Milne on hospitality; support for Norwegian students; a senior manager has been appointed Save the Children board chair; kids’ obesity; call for human rights for Muslim women. Massey: Paul Spoonley on the Asian population; Vanessa Crowe’s exhibition. Auckland: an employment case is discussed as a case study; Prof Ni Mhurchu on hungry kids. Otago Uni: school students in a technology competition. Student Job Search restructuring. Victoria: Marc Wilson reckons we’re less likely to have a Norway-style attack here.

The tertiary education angle is that there will be continued high pressure for places in tertiary education this month. While the Survey released today showed that tertiary education participation was only up 2.3% from Dec 08 to Dec 09, more precise figures will start flowing from the TEC and providers in the next few weeks. I’ll provide updates as they arrive.