Hon Maryan Street
Spokesperson for Tertiary Education
Carmel Sepuloni
Associate Spokesperson for Tertiary Education and Social Development

Cuts to education and training won’t help in recession

The cuts to education and training announced in the Budget will do nothing to pull New Zealand out of the recession, say Maryan Street and Carmel Sepuloni, Labour’s Tertiary Education spokespeople.

“A 1.95 percent adjustment for CPI increase for universities and polytechnics is actually a funding cut when you consider that inflation is now running at 3 percent,” said Maryan Street.

“How can a university or polytechnic cater for growth when their future funding is being cut? We are seeing more people enrol in tertiary study as they seek to up-skill in the wake of redundancies and an increasing dole queue. The institutions will simply have to turn people away because the Government is not funding them adequately. This is a terrible waste and takes the country in exactly the wrong direction,” she said.

“This is the moment to invest in education, not cut funding. Cutting money which could be spent on recruiting quality academic staff and improving pay rates threatens our ability to compete internationally, both for staff and economically in the future,” said Maryan Street.

“Young people are particularly at risk with the cuts in this budget to youth training. In addition, everybody who was hoping to be able to improve their skills and become more productive and employable is at risk from the $9 million cut to the CPI adjustment for industry training funding,” said Carmel Sepuloni.

“ People in the middle of their industry training programmes and apprenticeships will find that there is less funding than before in real terms and may find their training comes to a halt. This Budget denies people opportunities to up-skill and work their way, and the country’s way, out of recession.”

“It makes no sense. Specific longstanding youth training programmes such as Skill Enhancements, Youth Training and Nga Kaiarakati Pathfinders are also being cut back. These are the programmes which help young people, often Maori and Pacific, who have not done well at school, to pick up education and skills training again and build their way into tertiary education courses. Halving their funding is a cheap shot against people who can not protest easily. It leaves them sitting at the bottom of the jobless, unskilled heap without any hope of future improvement,” she said.

“In addition to that, the Government has savaged Adult and Community Education funding which provided courses through schools and community groups to assist people to get back into learning. Now there will not be that support available for people wishing to improve themselves, denying them opportunities to get ahead,” Carmel Sepuloni said.

ENDS

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