National’s Tertiary Policy

National has now released its teriary policy. The first part, also part of the tax policy, was to make interest on student loans tax deductible.

like the fact that one can intelligently justify the policy in terms of treating getting a tertiary education along the same lines as borrowing to go into trade or business. The cost is relatively modest, but is not a bad thing as if one makes student loans too attractive, you encourage who don't need them, to take them out. The total amount of long-term predicted has skyrocketed under Labour because of this.

Labour has wasted billions of dollars, as seen by:

* Tertiary education expenditure has grown by almost $1 billion since 1999, but degree courses have grown by only 6% in six years, while community education courses have grown by 545% and certificate and diploma courses by 116%.

* Labour is spending $65 million on community education courses which have no assessment, no qualification, and no requirement for evidence that students are doing the courses.

* From 2000 to 2004 Labour spent at least $3.3 billion on sub-degree courses, of which only one third of students completed, so $2.2 billion was spent on unfinished courses.

In the full tertiary policy (not yet online), the key points are National will:

* Abolish Community Education courses run by tertiary institutions as informal courses with no assessment, no qualification and no teaching time are not tertiary education.

* Remove funding restrictions on trades and apprenticeship funding and encourage more trade training and apprenticeships by paying more for high-quality, high skills qualifications.

* Freeze government spending on student enrolment in sub-degree certificate and diploma courses

* Institutions who do not have adequate quality control systems or who have approved dubious courses will lose the ability to approve their own new courses.

* Pay institutions for students when there is evidence that students are genuinely engaged and learning, not just enrolled.

* Cut funding for any course where the drop-out rate exceeds 50% two years .

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