Tertiary education and the 2007 Budget

In Budget 2007, announced today, the Government says its focus is on improving the quality and relevance of tertiary education by ensuring the successful implementation of the tertiary education reforms. The minister for Tertiary Education, Dr Michael Cullen, says that this budget will redirect $259.1 million of operating funding over four years (plus $68.9 million in 2006/07) that had previously been earmarked for the provision of sub-degree education into a package of high-quality initiatives that will enable the tertiary system to better fulfil New Zealand’s needs, and provide better value for money.


This investment is in addition to the $199.5 million of operating funding previously appropriated to increase funding rates for tertiary education by the rate of forecast Consumer Price Index inflation on a rolling triennium, which has been charged against Budget 2007. This has been budgeted at a 2.2 percent increase in 2008.

Key initiatives to be funded in Budget 2007 include:

Universities

• $129 million over four years to support universities build their capability and strengthen their international competitiveness. This comprises:
  1. $40 million to be used to support sector change in key areas such as further differentiation and collaboration, increased achievement of under-represented groups and an ongoing focus on high-quality teaching and research to drive economic growth.
  2. $89 million to the University Tripartite Forum to explore and create opportunities to increase the competitiveness of New Zealand universities through recruitment and retention strategies in an international labour market.

Polytechnics and ITPs

• $21 million in operating funding and $55 million in capital funding over the next two years to support the distinctive contributions of the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) sub-sector
• $35 million in capital funding over the next two years to support strategic change in ITPs and wananga through the Quality Reinvestment Programme

Wananga

• $6 million over four years to build the research capability of the wananga sub-sector. (See also the Quality Reinvestment Programme funding above.)

Industry training

• $53 million over four years to provide for increased growth in participation in industry training.
• $15.8 million over four years to support Industry Training Organisations to identify current and future industry skill and training needs, and work along side other tertiary education organisations to help them respond effectively to those needs.
• $7.5 million of operating funding over four years and $2.2 million of capital funding over the next two years to fund development and implementation of a national assessment tool for adult literacy, numeracy and language. This work will involve research into what is effective teaching and learning in this complex area of teaching, as well as professional development for tutors.

Student loans and allowances

• $28.9 million in operating funding will be made available over four years to increase student access to allowances and scholarships (which will be partially offset by a consequent reduction in demand for student loans). This comprises:
  1. The parental income threshold for entitlement to a full student allowance will increase by 10 per cent, to around $44,330 per annum, from 1 January 2008. This is estimated to cost $16.2 million in operating funding over four years.
  2. The student allowance personal income abatement threshold will be adjusted for inflation each year. This initiative will be introduced from 1 April 2008, and will maintain the real value of personal and couple income thresholds. This will cost $706,000 over four years.
  3. The Step Up Scholarship pilot will be expanded and redesigned to increase access and equity opportunities for students from low-income backgrounds, costing $11.4 million over four years. This will provide another 180 scholarships, an increase of 50 per cent.
  4. The Ngārimu Scholarship fund being strengthened in order to assist Māori leadership at a cost of $595,000 over four years.

PBRF

• $14 million in additional funding for the Performance Based Research Fund to increase research activity and also increase the quality of research outputs in New Zealand.

Research and Development

• The elements of the Budget package relevant to universities include:
  1. Building science capability by $25.2 million over four years, including $16 million for Crown Research Institutes and $8 million for the Marsden Fund;
  2. $8 million over four years for climate change research
  3. $7.3 million over four years towards increasing global science collaboration
  4. $4.5 million over three years for Antarctic research as part of International Polar Year
  5. $2.8 million for boosting research relationships with Asia

All Budget documents can be found at http://www.beehive.govt.nz/