First up, Karen Houston of International Travel College has sold her College. I first heard Karen’s name when ED was advising the other side of a business break-up that she was involved in. Not a great start, but I’ve had a fair bit to do with her over the years and enjoyed her passion, sense of humour and sheer achievement. The College has won a lot of awards and educated a lot of students, so it’s in a good place to pass on. She’s sold the business to her daughter (the marketing manager), a Campus Manager and an independent business advisor and I’m sure she’s happy it’s taken three people to replace her! She says she’s now going to become a professional ice skater and you never know with Karen. For those keen to find out more about the business change, here’s some background.

Judy Campbell is stepping down as Tairawhiti Polytechnic CE at the end of the year, as is Telford Rural Polytechnic’s CE Jonathan Walmisley. I accidentally walked into a farewell by their fellow CEs at drinks before NZITP’s dinner last Tuesday night (I thought they were just having a chat on the balcony!) and couldn’t agree more with the nice words said there. Both Judy and Jonathan have performed with dignity and integrity as they have supported the merger process that ended with the disestablishment of their institutions and the loss of their roles.

Judy has done really well over the last couple of years to stabilise Tairawhiti after many years of turmoil and get it to as good a place as it could be on its resources, and I’m sure it has been a tough job. Jonathan took Telford to impressive growth and, in recent years has had to manage a decline in EFTS and coverage due to the previous government’s opposition to out of region provision. I think he did a great job to build national provision, but the underlying value of the provision was questionable. Putting that aside though, it needed someone of Jonathan’s tireless networking and enthusiasm to make it happen. I’m happy he’s having a good break right now overseas before he starts a six month contract with Lincoln University to support the transition process. And with Judy, I’m sure we’ll see her in another high profile role early in the new year.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the work done by Judith Brown in turning around ITP Quality. I know that ITP Quality is just about to be disestablished, but Judith successfully modernised the organisation and led the implementation of the EER system. I was on her selection panel and was one of her managers (she had two, I had three – go figure). We went through many of the same pressures with members and staff, and she managed some very difficult issues well. I’m happy that she’s going to be working with NZQA yesterday and will be able to continue to contribute to the ITP, and wider tertiary, sector.

So congrats to Karen, Judy, Jonathan and Judith for their contribution – I look forward to what they’ll do next.

NZQA also seems to be chasing ITPQ, with Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce saying that NZQA might take over QA of the whole non-university sector, with ITPQ losing their delegated authority for QA of ITPs. The Government’s push is probably driven by three things: an honest belief that centralisation might work better; a suspicion that ITPQ gives ITPs an easy ride becasue it is dominated by ITPs; and a human desire by NZQA to expand its empire.

On the other hand, ITPs will value the customisation of ITPQ’s services and the extra control that they have over decisions – ITPQ’s board has four ITP CEOs, while NZQA has no ITP input on governance (and QA decisions are generally delegated to NZQA staff anyway).

I think ITPQ probably will have its delegation removed if NZQA really wants to push this, but rather than go through all the issues, I thought I’d explore one comparison of the two bodies. NZQA has only just started its focus on public naming of PTEs facing compliance notices, but ITPQ doesn’t seem to advise if it has offered any compliance notices. One ITP, Telford Rural Polytechnic, has not had Quality Assured Status (the standard status) for some time, but no information on that ITP is provided on the website – even the latest audit report is not provided, while it has been for all other ITPs. An audit of Telford was carried out in 2009 (see p.4 of ITPQ Annual Report), so why isn’t it up on the site? I could understand if there were some legal issues around the latest audit report, but why is there no information about Telford at all up on ITPQ’s site? There is no earlier audit report, nor any mention of the problems leading to the withdrawal of Quality Assured Status, nor any mention of compliance notices in effect. An external stakeholder would not gain any reassurance from ITPQ about Telford’s quality, while this situation could be offered as proof that ITPQ is soft on ITPs.

NB I have relied simply on ITPQ’s website in writing this note, rather than any information about ITPQ gained in my earlier role at ITPNZ.