Key promises shake-up to weed out 'lazy' students

Tertiary reforms will target low-value courses and emphasise relevance for jobs. Photo / Kenny Rodger

The Government is taking aim at lazy students and courses with high dropout or failure rates in looming reforms in tertiary education.

In his statement yesterday Prime Minister John Key said there were "increasingly urgent problems" in tertiary education, pointing to low-quality courses and students who were lazy or studied year after year without going into the workforce.

He said the Government had to improve the value it got from the $2.78 billion it spent on tertiary education. Many courses, especially below degree level, had dropout rates as high as 50 per cent and were not giving students what was needed for a job.

The Government would make changes to ensure courses were relevant to the job market and "of a consistently high quality".

Mr Key hinted that students' performance would also come under scrutiny when they applied for student loans or allowances.

"We will also take a careful look at the policy settings around student support to ensure that taxpayers' generosity is not being exploited by those who refuse to take their tertiary studies seriously or who show little inclination to transition from tertiary training into work."

New Zealand Union of Students' Associations co-president Pene Delaney said Mr Key was clearly looking at tightening eligibility for loans and allowances.

He rejected the implication students did not take their studies seriously, saying cutting eligibility would affect many, especially when part-time jobs were scarce and many people were returning to study because it was difficult to find full-time work.

"The last thing students need to worry about is whether their student allowance or loan living costs are going to be cut because of supposed 'non-seriousness'."

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said the details of the reforms were yet to worked out, but the Government wanted to ensure money was not being wasted.

"The Prime Minister has signalled previously that the principle of the student loan scheme as zero interest remains the same. What we are looking at is around the edges where there are potentially issues in terms of whether it's being used effectively to advance people's studies or not."

The Government's draft tertiary education strategy released at the end of last year suggested tertiary institutions be funded according to the performance of their students.

It proposed making information on retention and completion rates for each institution public, as well as graduates' success in getting jobs.

The Government is also looking at giving institutions more ways to raise revenue, after several complained about the "fee maxima" policy that puts a cap on fee increases each year.

Industry Training Federation executive director Jeremy Baker said Mr Key was correct to say the value New Zealand got for money spent in the tertiary sector needed to be improved.

There was no way to ensure money was targeted at areas where there was a clear skills demand.