January was a short month for ED Insider, with 13 posts, as we wanted to give people a chance to clear their desk. Our main focus was on reviewing the advice given to the TEC Board in November about investment plans, but we also covered ITO and ITP EER reports, a university academic audit report and industry news relevant to tertiary education. Out of the thousands of words we  have written on investment plans for subscribers, I have excerpted one interesting point from each major post (we don’t yet have PTE information). Please be aware that these are each cut and pasted from a much longer post with extra context, but I think they stand alone pretty well.

1. TEC advice about Massey University included: concerns over low performing provision; a need to review courses with low student numbers; low increase in Maori/Pasifika course completions (already low in university sector); and major management challenges.
2. Mergers and sharing of back office services are on the cards for the following ITOs:  Horticulture/Equine, Careerforce/Social Service and Local Govt/Learning State. With the three major clusters of ITOs picking up a large proportion of qual development funding, the benefits of scale seem apparent to ITOs.
3. Amongst wananga, Aotearoa and Awanuiarangi should see little impact when performance linked funding is introduced, but Raukawa has low education performance rates and will need to be closely monitored by TEC and NZQA.
4. The Lincoln University/Telford Rural Polytechnic will result in a shift of 130 EFTS at Level 2 delivered by Telford (previously for regulatory compliance activity) to undergraduate provision at Lincoln. Information on how many EFTS Telford will continue to deliver was withheld.
5. ITP funding will drop by $52.7m from 2010 to 2011, due to capability funding reductions. The percentage change by institution ranges from -1.0% (CPIT) to -20% (Aoraki Polytechnic), with an average of -7.3%. All but one of the 10/17 ITPs over the average reduction is a “regional” ITP, reflecting the extra assistance given to provincial ITPs in 2009-10.

On one level, this new series of posts is a marketing effort to encourage more organisations to trial and purchase the service (use this contact form to ask for a free 2 week trial!). On the other hand, it will give a wider audience to some of the content at ED Insider (usually not the juiciest) and I hope it starts some discussion in the comments.

If you want to find out more about ED Insider, click here.

Our first ED Insider item is our monthly agenda of what’s going on in tertiary education policy, industry and sector areas. We’ve analysed 22 policy processes, reports or other items (eg Minister Watch), stated our view on them and described the next steps and due dates. It should be a great reference tool for senior managers as it develops, allowing them to focus their effort.

The full website is a few weeks away, but we’re producing content now and seeking triallists. If you’d like to get a free sneak peek at the new service (including the agenda), while offering us some feedback in return, contact me. There are just two conditions.

1. You must be a senior manager in a university, ITP, wananga, ITO, large PTE, or national body of those TEOs. (This is our core market and we want to get it right for them first.)
2. Two or more senior managers must sign up from each organisation (We want you to be able to discuss the service’s value with a peer.)

We have six triallists already and are only seeking up to 20 triallists, so be in quick. If you’d rather have a chat first before signing up or just want to discuss things, call Dave Guerin on 021 404 334.