Courses face axe over fail rate

Thousands of qualifications will be dumped as the Government axes funding for courses with too many student failures.

Parents and prospective students will also play a part in the cull, with a new website showing the courses with the lowest success rates.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce announced the funding changes yesterday in his first speech since taking the portfolio at the start of the year. He told the Wellington Chamber of Commerce there were 6000 qualifications available.

"I can't believe that all of them are uniquely relevant and accepted by the people we want to recognise them – employers and students," he said.

The review of qualifications – the first in more than a decade – would strike out a quarter of all qualifications by the middle of this year, he said.

The review would target duplication and poor quality, and it would be harder for new qualifications to be added. More courses will face the chop in 2012, when student success rates will count for 5 to 10 per cent of an institution's funding.

"This means we are moving from a system that funds purely on enrolments to one that funds both on enrolments and results," Joyce said.

Some courses had pass rates of only 30 per cent. Joyce would not identify them. However, the public will soon have access to the figures, putting pressure on courses with low success rates.

The Tertiary Education Commission will launch a website in July that will show rates of course completion, student retention and progression to further study.

"Students invest considerable time and money in tertiary education and need to know that they will be supported to complete their qualification," Joyce said.

"We are going to have to make sure that students get the best information we can give them about what to study and what sort of job they can expect at the end of it."

Labour tertiary education spokeswoman Maryan Street said the changes would put pressure on staff to "get people over the line" and give them pass marks even if they were not good enough.

"Perversely, this system could lead to a lowering of academic standards, not the improvement in skills which this country needs," she said.

Tertiary Education Union president Tom Ryan said: "Shifting money around and getting institutions, staff members or students to compete between themselves will not solve the real problem – that universities, polytechnics and wananga need to be better funded."

The New Zealand Union of Students' Associations (NZUSA) raised concerns about Joyce's comments on tightening access to student loans.

Joyce confirmed "some fine-tuning of the student loan scheme". He said he wanted the provision of loans to be linked to students' academic progress.

NZUSA co-president Pene Delaney said: "Tying access to student loans to academic progress is unnecessary ... because institutions are already monitoring student performance."

- © Fairfax NZ News