Te Pūkenga staff cuts a race to the bottom.

Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union is disappointed to see several polytechnics scrambling to cut staff to show viability ahead of the proposed breakup of Te Pūkenga.

Significant staffing reviews are underway at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki and Waikato Institute of Technology with dozens of staff facing the axe.

Te Pou Ahurei Takirua – Ahumahi | Assistant National Secretary – Industrial Daniel Benson-Guiu warns this is likely to be just the beginning.

“These cuts are about individual institutions within Te Pūkenga, an entity that still exists until the end of next year, scrambling to show ‘financial sustainability’ by cutting staff to avoid being dragooned into a ‘federation’ model.”

“People will draw conclusions about what it says about the Minister’s federation model that institutions are scrambling to avoid being part of it.”

“But ultimately, what we are witnessing is a race to the bottom. We’ve been dealing with cuts like these in this sector for decades – they invariably result in fewer staff serving students and delivering education, which leads to fewer students, fewer courses, fewer programmes, fewer graduates and fewer trained workers which in turn leads to worse financial performance and more cuts.”

“You cannot cut your way to sustainability.”

“Unsustainability is caused by an unsustainable funding model and the only sustainable solution is to fund vocational education at a sustainable level.”