$1.75 billion on uncompleted courses

Bill English understands the wananga scandal is not about mis-doing at one instiution but a total failure of Labour’s tertiary education strategy.

Labour set up the Tertiary Education Commission as the corner-stone of its strategy, and it has been a miserable failure. Since 2000 it has spent a massive $2.5 billion on low-level, sub-degree courses and $1.75 billion of this was on the 70% of sub-degree students who fail to complete their courses.

It is not far from the truth to say that there were no positive educational outcomes for that $1.75 billion. It was on courses created to gain funding, not courses which there was a useful *educational* need for.

As Bill English points out Gisborne