J RECEIVED 3 0 SEP 2009 EDUGA UUN AND 8C/ENCE COMMITTEE POLY/12 Submission on the Education (Polytechnics) Amendments Bill 2009 To the Education and Science Committee From Jono Naylor, Mayor of Palmerston North City Council 25 September 2009 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 Introduction Please note that I would like to make an oral submission. Palmerston North City Council is the Territorial Local Authority representing 80,000 people and is New Zealand's twelfth largest city. The City is proud of its long history of association with tertiary educational institutes including Massey University, Te Wananga O Aotearoa and the Universal College of Learning (UCOL) based in the city. Education and Training is the second largest employment sector in the city and as such the City Council takes great interest in policy decisions that impact on its academic institutions. UCOL is a multi regional polytechnic, with its central hub located in Palmerston North. It has three different campuses, following a merger between the original UCOL and the Wairarapa Regional Community Polytechnic in 2001, and a further merger with Wanganui Regional Community Polytechnic in 2002. UCOL is unique in delivering tertiary education in three adjoining regions with a focus on applied learning. UCOL has a reputation within the city for its community support, state of the art facilities and award wining student support services. Page 1
2 2.1 Overview of concerns The stated public policy objectives of the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill (hereinafter referred to as 'the Bill') include 'to improve the governance capability and effectiveness of polytechnic councils'. Yet this bill seeks to reduce local governance and create the potential for majority power on all polytechnic councils to reside with Ministerial appointees. This will have the consequence of reducing the perception of academic freedom and reducing the long term resilience and capability of local communities to be significant participants in local service decision making. Creating a de facto majority of government appointees to polytechnic councils undermines the widely held principles of independence, academic freedom and institutional autonomy for academic institutions. 2.2 2.3 Palmerston North City Council is trying to create a sustainable city with a population that is active in a wide range of community affairs from local volunteering to voting in elections. The ability to be involved in local public service activity is a key to strong, resilient, sustainable communities. Removing any opportunity to represent your fellow citizens is a retrograde step in any democratic country. Engagement of Maori and local iwi in particular is not a straightforward process and reducing their engagement contributes to a decrease in capacity building opportunities and threatens the ability of local institutions to meet their obligations to acknowledge the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The introduction of proposals that allow for members to sit on more than one polytechnic council at one time, allied to the proposal to create combined councils, creates a circumstance that is open to abuse. There is the potential for a conflict of interest for individual members, it makes it easy for polytechnics to merge without the necessary due diligence and there is the potential for reduced service, quality and educational opportunity, particularly in rural and provincial communities, with a consequential impact on local economies and population. Page 2
3 3.1 Institutional autonomy and academic freedom The stated public policy objectives of the Bill include 'to improve the govemance capability and effectiveness of polytechnic councils'. The Bill seeks to achieve this by reducing local governance and consequentially increasing central government appointees to create a de facto majority. This action increases the potential for the perception of polytechnic councils to be aligned to the government of the day with a consequential reduction in autonomy and academic freedom. Polytechnic councils made of local representatives have a greater understanding of their local communities and are able to ensure that polytechnics are able to respond to local circumstances more readily than any centrally prescribed committee. For example, UCOL has ensured that its programmes are aligned to community needs and take cognisance of the different demands created by a diverse community. As a result the institution is trusted and well known throughout the city, increasing recruitment and retention of students into (and back into) education. Regional governance and community links played a role in the development of a number of programme offerings over the years including, pharmacy, motorsport, visual imaging/photography and bakery qualifications. Qualifications like the nursing degree offered on all UCOLs regional campuses are closely linked to District Health Boards and other regional health providers through clinical placements. Ensuring local communities have access to life long learning opportunities is critical for the long term health of any community. Removing local connectivity, through the reduction in local governance, may make this task even harder than it already is. 3.2 Effective local governance and connection allows polytechnics the local intelligence to ensure that its curriculum can effectively respond to local needs. This allows polytechnics the ability to map course requirements to local employment needs, ensuring immediate relevance for students and Page 3
employers. Providing industry relevant training and qualifications for local people helps keep local people employed in local jobs, a key government objective at this time. 3.3 It is a widely held belief, certainly within Western democracies, that educational institutes must preserve and enhance academic freedom. In New Zealand this is included in the Education Act 1989, specifically in section 161 of the Act. Creating a polytechnic council with a de facto majority of government appointees makes them open to having this fundamental principle undermined, perhaps not now, but in the future. New Zealand's tertiary education sector is highly regarded throughout the world, as is demonstrated by the 2007/08 estimate that foreign fee paying students contributed $2.3 billion of foreign exchange. Removing academic freedom or even the perception of academic freedom from the country's polytechnics has the potential to undermine how the world view's New Zealand's education sector. This, in turn, has the potential to impact on the whole tertiary education sector in the country, negatively influencing its ability to generate income from overseas and have a significant impact on both the national GDP and the local economy of Palmerston North. This economic loss would overshadow any increase in effectiveness that the Bill's measures hope to achieve. 4 4.1 Loss of representation on polytechnic councils The ability of citizens to be involved in governance of local public service activity is a key to strong, resilient, sustainable communities, as well as a basic right. Palmerston North City Council is trying to create a sustainable city with a population that is active in a wide range of citizenship activities from local volunteering, to taking part in community activity, to voting in elections. The proposal in the Bill to reduce the number of non governmental appointees is a retrograde step to meeting our aspirations. Government should be at the forefront of encouraging citizenship and active participation of its citizens. Healthy communities and democratic principles Page 4
rely on having a wide range of opportunities for people to engage with public structures at a level that is suitable to the individual. Reducing opportunities to participate in public service puts citizenship and governance into a spiral of decline, where less people are involved, less people have the skills; potential recruits become disillusioned leading to less people becoming involved and so on. Removing any opportunity to represent peers, colleagues or fellow citizens is a negative step in any democratic country and government should be finding ways to increase engagement not reduce it. 4.2 The desire to ensure Maori representation on the council and that the council should reflect the ethnic and socio economic diversity of the community (New Section 222AC, subsection 1) is a positive part of the Bill and its inclusion is applauded. However, it is not clear how this will be achieved and whether it is achievable within the confines of a council limited to eight people. It is also unfortunate that government have not felt it necessary to ensure that there is some gender balance in the council. 4.3 Our city is a warm, welcoming city for people from all over the world. Part of this is a consequence of government's policy regarding the armed forces, which has resulted in significant growth in the local Maori and Pacific Island communities. The city is also a new home for a number of political refugees as a consequence of government's policy led by the Department of Internal Affairs. The success of the academic institutions in attracting overseas student has also contributed to the diversity of the city. In addition to this diverse group there is an important local iwi contribution to be acknowledged. This restriction on size will have implications for polytechnic councils ensuring that they meet their obligations to acknowledge the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Restricting the number of people on the council to eight at the same time as the councils are required to ensure they reflect the local community is an impossible task and needs to be reconsidered. A solution would be to allow councils the discretion to appoint Page5
additional members or have council membership of at least ten people, with three members nominated from the local community. 5 5.1 Membership and mergers In section 222AC there is a distinction between what the Minister must consider is appropriate for appointees (subsection 2) and what the polytechnic council must consider (subsection 3). There is no requirement for the Minister toe 'nsure their appointees have the relevant knowledge, skills or experience, a requirement that is placed on the councils. The Minister is only required to appoint people who have enough experience of governance to fulfil their individual duties. With a stated policy objective of improving the governance capability and effectiveness of polytechnic councils, it would be more effective for both the Minister and the polytechnic councils to appoint people who have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience. Furthermore, the required skills, experience and knowledge should be agreed nationally and clearly articulated to polytechnic councils and prospective council members. This understanding would assist in meeting the policy objectives of the Bill. 5.2 The introduction of proposals in section 222AB that allow for members to sit on more than one polytechnic council means that there is the potential fora conflict of interest for individual members, particularly if the two polytechnics offer similar courses in the same areas. If the issue that is to be resolved is the lack of skilled people then there should be actions put in place to identify, recruit and train potential council members rather than simply reduce the number of places available. As outlined before this puts citizenship and governance into a spiral of decline which needs to be halted, not encouraged. 5.3 The proposals, contained in Section 222AJ, to form a multi institutional council effectively allows a merger of polytechnics without any recourse to the procedural safeguards contained in the 1989 Education Act. Merging Page 6
polytechnics has been 'shown to be successful by the UCOL experience in this region. However, this has been achieved by following due process and was driven by a desire to ensure quality, effective services for students and the wider community. It was not done because of the number of available council members. In addition, there will be a number of practicable problems with this proposal. Council members will be appointed to ensure the best interests of the polytechnic are met, but a combined council will create conflicts of interest between council members. Once again this proposal would result in a reduction in the number of representatives, again reducing the capacity of citizens to engage in citizenship activities. 5.4 6 6.1 If the solution to a lack of potential council members in a rural area is to combine the governance arrangements. with an urban area polytechnic there is the real danger that services will gradually be merged into the urban area. This will have significant negative economic impacts on rural communities. In addition, this will exacerbate recruitment issues in subject areas like nursing where there is a real shortage issue in rural communities. A further consequence to this reduction of student choice and economic reduction will be an accelerated drift of our young people from countryside to city. Combining the governance arrangements for polytechnics simply because there is a lack of suitable candidates seems an excessive solution, with possible unforeseen negative economic and social impacts in our rural communities. Conclusion It is recognised that government should seek to ensure that its considerable investment in tertiary education, including polytechnics, is utilised well In particular it recognises the Crowns argument about the need to create an effective interventions framework that allows appropriate and varied responses to a number of different scenarios. 6.2 However, government needs to see the consequences of its actions in a wider sphere than that of just the polytechnics. Polytechnic's governance Page 7
arrangements should allow for significant local governance and reducing the possibility of this civic engagement will have an enduring impact on all our local communities that will hasten a decline in citizenship and civic responsibility. 6.3 The proposals in the Bill contain a potential long term threat to rural communities of smaller economies, reduced services and increased aging populations. Any proposals that have a long term negative impact on our rural communities need to see the role of public agencies in their widest sense and not just take a narrow approach to the well being of individual institutions or agencies. 6.4 Local governance and connection can add significant value to the work of public sector agencies and there needs to be a determined effort to ensure opportunities are available for people to gain skills and knowledge so that they can effectively contribute to their local communities. However, it is also recognised that large governance bodies can be unwieldy. Solutions need to be found that allow public services to be locally valued and relevant, whilst still allowing decisive and responsive decision making by their governance bodies. Page 8