Polytechnics come of age with report

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 2

Polytechnics come of age with report

PA Nelson Polytechnics have a chance to shed their second-class image in tertiary education, says the Association of Polytechnics president, Mrs Alison Roxburgh. Commenting on the Hawke report, she said yesterday that polytechnics had finally come of age after being in existence for 20 years. “The report is much more positive than negative for polytechnics. With all these education reports we have been in a state of limbo for three years and if this one moves forward, 1990 promises to be a new era for us.”

The Hawke report, if implemented by the Government, would give polytechnics the resources arid freedom to make a real contribution to the future growth of New Zealand.

Polytechnics had been poor relations to universi-, ties for two decades but the Hawke report finally gave them equal footing, Mrs Roxburgh said. Polytechnics now were funded by the department on a piecemeal basis. Under the proposed system polytechnics would receive three-yearly bloc grants and be responsible for their own budgets. An individual polytech-

nic council would be able to decide where its needs were and channel its resources accordingly without going through the Education Department. The report also proposed to give polytechnics the power to confer degrees if their courses were approved to be of degree status. The move would give some polytechnic graduate students such as physiotherapists, pharmacists or nurses greater recognition of their qualifications, Mrs Roxburgh said. Polytechnics welcomed the opportunity for more research funds proposed under the report. Universities were not so welcoming about the funding proposals because they had had a great deal of independence and had the educational research funds more or less to themselves, she said. The establishment of a new Ministry of Education structure for both universities and polytechnics would also assist co-ordi-nation and co-operation across the tertiary sector, she said. Mrs Roxburgh was not in favour of a student loan system as recommended in the report unless it gave more access to tertiary education as indicated by the Associate Minister of Education, Mr Goff.