Government’s Handling Of Te Pūkenga An “Ongoing Shambles”

Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union is dismayed to note the ongoing shambles unfolding around the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga.

Gus Gilmore, Tumuaki | Chief Executive of Te Pūkenga, has written to all his staff to announce, at TEC’s behest, procurement of “the services of specific specialists to undertake an intensive exercise focused on how we can ensure financial sustainability across former ITPs” from consultants including PWC, Volte, Calibre Partners and Deloitt.

The move is in response to an expectation from Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds for Te Pūkenga to take “whatever actions it considers necessary to improve the financial performance of the network as a whole, through ensuring each of the individual business divisions can become financially sustainable.”

Daniel Benson-Guiu Te Pou Ahurei Takirua - Ahumahi | Assistant National Secretary – Industrial describes the process that’s been set out as “an expensive, convoluted and premature way to get an answer to a question we could give them the answer to right now – the sector is underfunded.”

“Here we have a government that considers itself ‘business savvy’ and says it’s committed to reducing wasteful spending, overseeing money being thrown at pricey consultancy companies to tell them how to profitably run a network of organisations. And all this is before they have even announced what the new network of provision set to replace Te Pūkenga will look like.”

“It’s a shambles, one that as always staff and students will pay the price for, and one that diverts time, energy and resources away from training Aotearoa’s future workforce.”

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