The private sector is part of the answer

NZPA quotes from a tertiary education sector report that found private education providers had “a greater service-like attitude towards industry that manifested itself as ‘you’re the mountain and we’ll come to you’,”.

This has prompted the Education Forum to ask the Government to recognise the role of private training establishments in tertiary education. You see policy over the last six years has been to cap funding for PTEs, while the public providers were allowed to go wild with scams such as Cool IT. Current funding policy has been highlt discriminatory.

Similiar problems exist in health, where the Government does everything possible to discourage the use of private hospitals, even when they will provide a better outcome for patients, at less costs (allowing more operations to be done).

A balanced Giovernment policy would recognise that both the public and private sectors have roles to play in delivering good outcomes, and would not discriminate on the basis of ownership structure, but instead be focused on what provides the best outcomes for taxpayers, students and patients.