The minister for tertiary education, Steven Joyce, used a meeting with the Education and Science Committee last week to suggest he was looking at increasing funding to Private Training Establishments (PTEs) at the expense of public tertiary education providers.

Ed Insider reported last week that Mr Joyce told the committee that he wanted to be sure that PTEs were doing their job well, and that he also wanted to level the playing field by addressing funding anomalies. He said that the rationale for the 9.5 percent lower funding that PTEs receive compared to public tertiary education providers, was “financially illiterate” and “irrelevant”.

Since 2002 PTEs have received 9.5 percent less funding tuition subsidy rates per student than other tertiary institutions. This reduction was intended to reflect their lack of a ‘capital component’.

The Labour Party’s new tertiary education spokesperson, Grant Robertson, told Tertiary Update he hoped Mr Joyce’s priority would be to support the public system, “which is struggling with increased demand and rising costs”.

“PTEs have a role to play in our education system, but a strong public tertiary sector is the most important part of the future of tertiary education,” Mr Robertson said.

The Green Party’s tertiary education spokesperson, Gareth Hughes, said that Mr Joyce’s statements come from an ideological background and are not in the best interests of kiwi students.

“It is a transfer of wealth to the private sector.  The government is not increasing funding to the tertiary education sector, but is still talking about taking money from the public sector and putting it towards private profit,” said Mr Hughes.