Comment raises doubt over polytech degrees

Polytechnics' degree programmes could yet come under threat from new
Tertiary Education Minister Dr Michael Cullen, Otago Polytechnic student
co-president Richard Mitchell said yesterday.
At a recent student conference in Wellington, Dr Cullen said, in an
unscripted moment, he wanted to see polytechnics stick to their core role
within the tertiary education sector, Mr Mitchell told yesterday's meeting
of the Otago Polytechnic council.
Polytechnics' traditional business was sub-degree and trade courses, not
degrees, Mr Mitchell said.
That was previously the preserve of universities but polytechnics had
moved into the area.
Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker said he had explicitly quizzed
high-ranking education bureaucrats at a meeting last month on that issue and
was told categorically there was no agenda to remove degrees from
polytechnics.
That left open the possibility in the future of looking at the delivery
of post-graduate courses at polytechnics, Mr Ker said.
Otago Polytechnic offers one of the largest range of degree courses in
the sector and is about to add a further course, a bachelor of environmental
studies.
Members of the council want to see results from the $770,000 their sector
association, the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand
(ITPNZ), receives from the country's polytechnics.
A new funding model for the sector body went before councillors at their
meeting yesterday, and several said they would be calling for Otago
Polytechnic to pull out if the ITPNZ did not become more productive in the
coming year.
The new funding model is a result of a threat from the Manukau Institute
of Technology to pull its contribution.
Long-time ITPNZ chief executive Jim Doyle announced his resignation
earlier this week.
The polytechnic council's chairman Graham Crombie and deputy chairman
Mike Ferrari were re-elected unopposed for another year.

This article was taken from the Friday 3rd edition of the Otago Daily Times with the express permission of the writer, Tom McKinlay.