1. Money Laundering Tow foreign students had their identities used by a fraudster to launder money.
2. CPIT Pay A CPIT pay offer is going to staff for a vote. Looks like it might pass.
3. Aoraki Cuts The TEU says staff are gutted about course cuts at Aoraki. There’s also a story on the Ashburton situation and a brief story on Aoraki cuts
4. UCOL Whanganui UCOL CE Paul McElroy reassured Whanganui students that there was no need to fear the arts courses review.
5. Prison Training Christchurch prison trade training (The Press, RNZ).
6. Extras: profile of NorthTec’s new gallery; EIT’s Trades and Technology Training Centre won a local architecture award; hail caused a sun sail to collapse at Waiariki.

Research & Innovation

1. Snapper Spawning Auckland’s Carina Sim-Smith has found out where snapper spawn.
2. Extras: Auckland’s Janet Fanslow on intimate partner violence; history conference at Waikato; Massey’s Pasture Meter; Massey’s Sarb Johal on the impact on public trust in institutions of the Rena grounding.

Public Issues

1. Election Waikato’s Prof Mark Harcourt on the minimum wage;
2. MMP Otago Uni’s Bryce Edwards has an op-ed on MMP, as does Unitec’s Keith Rankin, while NZUSA supports MMP.
3. Speak Out Auckland’s Prof Glenn McGregor urges scientists to speak out on issues like climate change.
4. Science and Poetry Massey’s Brian Walpert on science and poetry.
5. Extras: Auckland’s Jane Kelsey has an op-ed on trade talks; David Farrar criticises Auckland’s Rhema Vaithianathan over non-disclosure; Massey’s Alan Palmer on Manawatu Gorge slips; Massey’s Eric Neumann on pork trade.

Students

1. Mississippi Film Win Media Design School students and staff won an award at the Mississippi International Film festival.
2. Top Chefs Ten trainee chefs have been named as finalists in a national competition – they come from NorthTec, AUT, BOPP, HSI, SkyCity, WelTec, CPIT and Otago Poly.
3. Extras: WITT student named top retailer; Wintec student’s art exhibition; TWOA weaving exhibition; SIT research project display; a quasi-advertorial on a Massey student; Otago Uni student selling cookies; student looking at aviation safety; BOPP’s business students’ SPCA fundraiser; Otago Uni student’s op-ed on keeping energy assets; challenge of getting people into the building industry.

Stakeholders

1. Entrepreneurship Massey is helping to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week with a business case competition and an Intrapreneurship Summit.
2. Extras: Massey lecturer gets US military honour; Victoria recognises Hunter Fellows; great review of Otago Uni’s ScienceTeller Festival; Massey hosting business networking.

Teaching & Learning

1. Taranaki…Adult Learners’ Awards winners.
2. Extras: trades teaching app by Otago Poly.

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. Otago Uni students missing Two Otago University students are missing in Christchurch: Sisi Xin (China) and Didem Yaman (Turkey). One from Dunedin was visiting the other, who studied in Christchurch.
2. Train More Builders …is the call going up in Taranaki and Wellington to help Christchurch rebuild.
3. CPIT…is planning for the worst and hoping for the best.
4. Volunteers…continue to work hard, both students and farmers.
5. The Crusaders…are back training, at Lincoln University.
6. Deadlines are Looming… for Christchurch postgrad students with overseas papers due.
7. Donations...are being made throughout the country amongst tertiary education folk. Since pretty much everyone is doing it, I won’t be listing them all, but good work.
8. Free/Pricy Rocks Tai Poutini Poly has been given a 225kg jade rock for carving students to use. If you want to help Christchurch and have a laugh, look at this TradeMe auction.
9. Short Bits WITT journalism students have started working next to their local paper. A profile of publishers, including Victoria University Press. A Victoria Uni student has won a fountain design contest. A Bay of Plenty Poly scientist on the potential in aquaculture. The ODT celebrates the annual student influx. Waikato Uni has honoured some emerging researchers. EIT is selling some student-made cottages. The University of Auckland is honouring some distinguished alumni including SA premier Mike Rann. Next week Victoria Uni’s Prof Richard Boast has his inaugural lecture while Emeritus Prof Roger Robinson launched a new book last week, amidst news that a friend was missing in Christchurch.

The new training and assessment centre will, at a cost of $1.6m, provide plumbing and gasfitting students with the necessary training required in a real-world environment using the latest learning technologies. Professional plumbers and gasfitters will also be able to use the centre to fulfill the ongoing continued professional development that they require to maintain their annual practising licenses.

The new centre has special booths set up for students to learn as if they’re working on the job, and virtual welders to help with learning in a safe environment. You can see the layout quite well in the next couple of photos, getting a sense of the modular nature of the space, the range of work that can be carried out and also the support from commercial partners.

Executive Dean for the Faculty of Built Environment, David Nummy, says the establishment of the centre is only the beginning of a major upgrade for his faculty. Nummy says the vision his faculty has for the future is to provide a flexible training space that can be easily changed to accommodate the various trades students are studying. For example, a space that plumbing students use one day can easily be converted to accommodate automotive students the next day.

The picture below shows a lot of sponsors’ material, but once you strip all that out you have a series of frames ready for plumbing to be installed.

The space reminds me of the TradeFIT facility down at CPIT and it looks like a useful simulation workspace. Congrats to Unitec.