KEY POINTS:
Eleven jobs are at risk and courses catering for 200 fulltime students face the axe in a $1.3 million funding cut at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic.
In the most dramatic tertiary education funding overhaul in 17 years, the polytechnic and other tertiary education providers will no longer be government-funded based on the number of students enrolling in approved courses.
Instead, the Tertiary Education Commission will fund the polytechnic to an agreed dollar value. As a result, the polytechnic will have to look at reducing the range of courses offered and potentially withdrawing up to 10 programmes to fit the funding requirement.
The polytechnic will not say what those courses are but said they will not affect diploma or degree programmes, including those offered in partnership with the University of Waikato and Auckland University of Technology.
Courses in high demand or imperative to the Bay's economy will not be lost.
There are up to 200 students enrolled in the courses set to lapse. Their fees have contributed about $1.3 million to the polytech this year.
No current students will be affected but new enrolments will not be taken in the affected programmes.
Polytechnic chief executive Alan Hampton said the only way to comply with the funding cap for 2008-10, which has been negotiated with the Tertiary Education Commission, was to identify some programmes to cut.
"This will enable fulltime students and dollars to be within our negotiated cap," Dr Hampton said. "We will be looking in six to nine months' time to negotiate an improved agreement for 2009 and 2010. Even in a capped environment it is imperative the institution keeps developing and growing."
The funding cap will also result in the loss of some jobs. Dr Hampton said at least 11 academic jobs had been identified as being at risk and affected staff notified.
He said the announcement had come as a shock to staff, many of whom are likely to be their family's "principal wage earner".
Dr Hampton added that the negotiation of funding for 2008-10 with the Tertiary Education Commission for all polytechnics, unfortunately started with their 2006 performance figures. "Any growth we had in 2007, which for Bay of Plenty Polytechnic is around 12 per cent, has largely been discounted," he said.
"It will effectively take to 2010 to get back to where we are in terms of student places and for one of the fastest growing regions of New Zealand it is totally unsatisfactory," Dr Hampton said.
Bay of Plenty Times
