KEY POINTS:
Despite a doctor shortage, a nursing shortage and vacancies in many medical specialties, an Auckland university is reported this week to be turning students away from health science and midwifery courses. The Auckland University of Technology complains that there is a limit to the numbers the Government will fund.
This appears to be news to the Government, whose spokesmen deny there is any cap on course funding and point out that National wants to attract more students to medicine and other health services, possibly even writing off student loans for those who agree to be bonded to use their qualifications in this country for a reasonable period.
Health Minister Tony Ryall is unable to say when this will be done. He should be wondering whether it needs to be done. If universities are turning away applicants for want of more course funding, the Government has no need to offer them extra incentives, such as the student loan write-off at public expense. It can simply remove the funding cap.
It should, in fact, remove all tertiary funding restrictions. Until the previous Government came to power, public funding followed students to courses of their choosing. Since students have to pay a considerable proportion of their tuition costs, they were unlikely to waste their money and the taxpayers' contribution on courses that are unsuited to their future earning potential.
The previous Government did not share this view. It saw too much duplication of certain courses and too many graduates in lucrative subjects such as law, and it believed a committee of wise appointees could allocate public funds more sensibly. Thus the country acquired the Tertiary Education Commission, which has imposed the funding caps that National Government spokesmen know nothing about.
The commission was supposed to be alert to skill shortages in the economy, so it is a surprise - though probably it should not be - that a university finds its health funding restricted.
AUT's dean of health and environmental sciences, Professor Max Abbott, says: "Last year, and again this year, I have found it very distressing to have to turn away many hundreds of able applicants in programmes where we face workforce crises."
Last year was the first in which tertiary institutions began operating under controlled funding plans to 2010. It took eight of Labour's nine years in office to get the system up and running. It could be dismantled in a fraction of the time, but that cannot be done piecemeal. Education Minister Anne Tolley has discovered the law does not allow her to direct the commission on funding for a particular institution. Either National must let the commission make independent decisions or abolish its allocating role entirely. It should do the latter.
Sadly, that is probably too much for a Government that seems averse to restoring competitive funding arrangements in the public sector. Its aversion stems not from disbelief in their practicality but merely from a disinclination to revive "arguments of the past". There was not much wrong with student-led allocations that could not be fixed with a proper oversight of course standards. National could use the commission for that role and fund institutions for as many students as the commission's approved courses can attract.
The commission is plainly deficient in discerning workforce needs. If it cannot foresee gaps in the health services, where demand is largely rationed by the public system, it is unlikely to be well attuned to the private sector. It is time to trust students again. They are best placed to know their potential and invest their money and ours in careers that need them.
