Auckland private training schools may miss out on a new fund

Auckland’s private training schools fear losing a $ 10 million fund designed to help schools survive the loss of international students, because the criteria favor schools in regional areas.

The criteria for the new fund released this week by the Commission on Tertiary Education include “regional importance,” defined as a school that is “the only provider of its kind in the region, and / or attracts international students to the region, and / or is a significant employer in the region. “

Auckland-based Languages ​​International CEO Darren Conway said “regional importance” was “the government department’s code for ‘no Auckland'”, despite 63 percent of the 10,500 Foreign students in private training schools last year were in Auckland.

“You can’t tell people to go to Methven or Timaru, not Auckland,” he said.

“Globally, the market goes to cities, that’s what attracts people.”

Private training providers are also angry that the government has given $ 11.7 million to the Green School in Taranaki out of mere “speculation” that it could attract foreign students, while its entire sector got only $ 10 million to try to keep alive. a $ 1.8 billion industry.

“It’s outrageous, unstrategic and disrespectful to us,” Conway said.

The $ 10 million Private Training Establishments (PTE) Targeted Assistance Fund is part of a $ 51.6 million support package announced in July for the international education sector, including $ 20 million for elementary schools and high schools, $ 10 million for “new products focused on the future” such as delivering education abroad, $ 6.6 million for pastoral care of students still here, and $ 3 million to continue promoting education in New Zealand while the border remains closed.

There was also a small fund of $ 1.5 million for English schools to switch to teaching English to New Zealand resident immigrants and their families. Eleven schools have submitted applications and funding decisions are due to be made by the end of this month.

Conway said the criteria for the $ 10 million PTE fund have been changed from a first draft to support schools that are most exposed to border closures, now those in which at least half of the students are foreign rather than from the first draft of a quarter, and with at least a 40 percent decrease in revenue instead of a 30 percent first draft.

But he said language schools could not persuade the commission to drop the “regional importance” clause or other provision that grants should support the skills New Zealand needs or pathways to further education or employment.

“Most of the PTEs that provide skills development are not really feeding the domestic workforce, except as a pathway to immigration,” he said.

“Skills development can happen through the domestic market that is funded by regular Vote Education money. Why does it have to come from money intended to support the international sector?”

New Zealand Independent Tertiary Education (Itenz) industry group chair Craig Musson said that only some of the 159 PTEs with international students would meet the criteria, and that the $ 10 million would not be enough to keep the entire sector.

“When they give $ 11.7 million to a school and $ 125 million to the Christchurch bike lanes, we are concerned that the government is not evaluating the amounts they are giving fairly,” he said.

New Zealand Qualifications Authority Deputy Executive Director Eve McMahon said two PTEs have so far requested “hibernation,” allowing them to remain registered without teaching any students for up to 18 months.

Dominion English Schools principal Andrew Fisher confirmed that he requested hibernation after teaching ended on August 17 after 51 years.

“We are not maintaining the facilities because it would be too expensive,” he said. “That means we don’t have a hard time surviving in that extremely reduced form, basically me and my laptop.”

Conway has said that another Auckland school, EF International Language Center, is requesting hibernation, and Pauline Copland of the ABC College of English in Queenstown has said she planned to request hibernation when her last students finished this month.

Napier’s New Horizon College language school closed in May, and Auckland Hotel and Chefs Training School closed in June “due to the impacts of Covid-19 on its viability.”

At this stage the rest of the sector holds, although in a reduced way.

The president of the Auckland Institute of Studies, Dr Julia Hennessy, said its student numbers have dropped by 40 percent since the borders were closed, but it has recently stabilized as the institute has picked up students of the schools that have closed and others that have decided to extend their studies.

Clare Bradley of Aspire2 International said it had to cut its staff in half from 250 to 118, but applied for approval to start new courses for national students in skills shortage areas like information technology and healthcare.

Schools still hope the government will allow some foreign students into the country early next year, but Hennessy said proposed quarantine criteria requiring separate bathrooms for each household rule out the use of most student shelters. .

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Victoria, Dr. Grant Guilford, said last month that he had decided not to press the government again to let students into special shelters.

“They have clearly stated that there is no willingness to allow international students to enter the country this year and we should expect only a small number next year,” he said.

“The recently released cabinet document also points to a different view of international education dominated by transnationals (overseas delivery online or through overseas partners) rather than in-country enrollments.

“Unfortunately, we have now turned our attention to cost-out work.”

When asked what “cost-out work” meant, he said, “I mean starting the unenviable task of eliminating college costs in proportion to falling revenue.”