In his budget policy statement for this year the minister of finance, Bill English said under the heading ‘lifting education and skills‘

“Looking ahead, we expect growth in the labour force to slow due to demographic changes. This means that the economy will need to exploit its skills potential to the full. We will need to become more effective in moving young people from education and training into the labour market, and also in utilising the skills of others such as older workers, part-time workers, migrants and women with dependent children who may want to work more. We will also need to reduce the incidence of young people becoming trapped into long periods of welfare dependency that reduce their attachment to the labour market.”

TEU president Dr Sandra Grey has responded saying that if the minister has this as his goal then the policies he needs to implement are very clear.

“There are 50,000 more people unemployed than there were two years ago, but there are only 8,000 more unemployed people in formal study than there were two years ago” says Dr Grey.

“If citizens who have not previously had a tertiary education are going to get new skills and education then we need to equip our public tertiary education system to meet their needs. That means support for first time students, foundation courses and, as the minister has often noted, greater pastoral care. It also means financial support for all those students who do not have another income while they are studying for the skills the government wants them to get – older workers, migrants and women with dependent children. It means we need to increase dramatically the number of places available to make space for all these new students. People without a background in study will need smaller, not larger class sizes, more tutorial support and a more stable tertiary education workforce.”

“Tertiary education workers are desperately keen to help the minister end welfare dependency. Now we just need the tools to do the job,” said Dr Grey.