Labour airs concerns for tertiary funding

FACT-FINDING: MP Iain Lees-Galloway, (left), MP Chris Hipkins, UCOL deputy chief executive academic Bonnie Dewart, UCOL campus manager Angela Hewitt, Kieran McAnulty and MP David Cunliffe at UCOL. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

Concerns for the future of Wairarapa's tertiary education centres have been raised by visiting Labour representatives who say a significant amount of funding has been "taken away from tertiary education provision here in the last couple of years".

Wairarapa Labour advocate Kieran McAnulty was joined by the Labour skills and wages caucus committee, whose members included MPs Iain Lees-Galloway, Chris Hipkins, and David Cunliffe, on Thursday to visit Fernridge School, UCOL, and Taratahi.

Rimutaka MP Chris Hipkins said in regional areas like Wairarapa he has seen parts of the education system that are "really struggling with underfunding or with funding cuts".

"Within the school sector, we're seeing a lot of money going into building new schools in places like Auckland and Queenstown where there's population growth, and they're really struggling in the regions with the existing schools that aren't necessarily getting the same levels of support to build new buildings and upgrade.

"There's a lot of shortage around special education and supporting kids with special needs so we see that particularly in the regions but also right throughout the country.

"In the tertiary level, we're seeing cuts to foundation level courses, which are really hard for the areas like Wairarapa - there's about 4 or 5 million dollars being taken away from tertiary education provision here in the last couple of years.

"That's going to hurt the local community so we get a lot of feedback for that."

Mr Hipkins said that overall funding cuts to UCOL have resulted in the dropping of many foundation level courses that have made education less accessible to people living in regional areas.

"UCOL overall, 4.4 million was cut in 2011 from diploma level classes," he said.

"There was a further 2.6 million that they lost in 2013 as a result from the cuts in foundation level programmes.

"If tertiary education is cut here in Wairarapa, what you'll find is that people will go to Wellington or Palmerston North or they'll go even further north up into the Hawke's Bay because that's where the opportunities are.

"We'd much rather that people are staying locally to do their tertiary education because frankly that means they're more likely to still be here at the end of it, whereas if they're moving away for tertiary education, you've then got the challenge of getting them to come back."

Mr McAnulty said he believed the Government should increase its investment in regional education on all primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

"You can't keep giving lip service to the regions saying that people will stay and that the market will deliver," he said.

"There needs to be some investment in things such as educational provision so that there is a reason to stay in the regions.

"Those core training areas that have always been here, your trade enterprises, your nursing with the hospital, those can always be delivered here and they should never be under strain because of financial cuts."