Government offers 4.5pc carrot for further tertiary fees freeze

By DITA DE BONI

Universities, colleges of education, polytechnics and wananga will be offered a 4.5 per cent funding increase next year to buy a fees freeze for New Zealand's 283,000 students for the third year in a row.

The figure, which the Government has not yet made public, is substantially higher than previous years, including last year's 2.6 per cent increase that almost caused mutiny by tertiary providers, and is thought to have been behind a secret offer to the sector that averted a crisis late last year.

It is understood that the money offered to universities to freeze their fees in 2003 - which will see Auckland University gain roughly an extra $7.5 million and Waikato University an extra $2.6 million, for example - will be the last year such a "fees freeze" deal is offered.

From 2004, a new funding framework for the entire tertiary sector, called the Integrated Funding Framework (IFF), will completely change the way the sector is funded. It is thought that IFF will specify some containment of fees, but the details will not be released until Budget time, 10 days away.

However, an overarching national strategy for the tertiary sector, released in its final form yesterday, seems certain to ensure some courses are more heavily subsidised than others if they fit with "national goals" laid out by the Government.

Funding from 2004 will be funnelled through the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), which will be set up on July 1.

Any of the $1.6 billion in public funding given through TEC will be heavily dependent on institutions following a host of conditions as laid out in the strategy and approved by TEC and the Minister of Education.

The 72-page strategy document, full of aspirational statements about building a better tertiary sector through more collaboration and less competition between institutions, was released to a cautiously optimistic response.

Most involved in the higher education sector are happy that the country finally has a national tertiary plan that might help avoid duplication of courses and a glut of graduates from specific courses.

But some, including the New Zealand Students' Association, felt the strategy would encourage a tertiary system "being little more than a factory to produce the specific skill needs of business", and that a "fight for cash" would ensue that would create "winners and losers - with students the ultimate losers".

Act's tertiary education spokeswoman Muriel Newman called the plan "typical Maharey - fine words and nice generalities but a disappointing lack of detail".

Massey University Government relations manager Associate Professor Ruth Anderson said difficulties remained with how long the strategy would apply, how it would be funded and what degree of continuity could be expected.

Mr Maharey has already said there would not be a "magical injection" of money to implement the strategy.

It is understood the IFF will instead outline a redistribution of available funds - presumably to help students undertake studies that are more actively desired by the workplace.

An extra pool of money - the amount has not been specified - will be announced on Friday, to be distributed to institutions that have already shown a willingness to follow the strategy's objectives.

Dr Grant Duncan, national president of the Association of University Staff, quipped that the question of funding was "still the big IFF ... when asked about more public funding of the system at the launch, the minister was only willing to say that the Government would like to lift our investment as the years go by, and that it

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