Tech boss warns of closure risk

Rodney District risks losing its biggest tertiary education provider within months if it does not receive a funding injection from the government.

Mahurangi Technical Institute's funding shortfall is not due to falling demand it is expecting more than 2000 students this year.

The deficit of "several hundred thousand dollars" is a result of the Labour Government's policy to regionalise tertiary funding.

Director and founder of Mahurangi Technical Institute Paul Decker said the closure of the institute would have dire consequences on the region. It is one of Rodney's largest employers with 42 full-time staff and is the district's only centre for targeted training.

Mr Decker said it was important to New Zealand as the nation's largest maritime education provider and only super yacht training school, and had been named one of the top three freshwater fish researchers in the world.

Regionalisation forced tertiary providers to pull satellite campuses from other areas of the country and keep their funding to the regions.

This meant funding from Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, totalling 75 per cent of the Mahurangi Technical Institute's funding, was withdrawn from January 2008.

Mr Decker said unless he sees the full funding he was promised, he will have no choice but to close in three or four months' time.