Funding linked to job outcome 'impractical'

Otago Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker has dismissed as "impractical" a suggestion some Government tertiary funding be linked to students' employment outcomes.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said on Wednesday he wanted to see funding linked to employment outcomes, not just internal benchmarks.

"This will send a strong signal to students about which qualifications and which institutions offer the best career prospects - and that's what tertiary education has got to be about," he said during a speech at Victoria University.

But Mr Ker said yesterday obtaining accurate data about how many graduates and leavers were in employment and how many were in jobs which directly related to their area of study would be "highly fraught, to say the least".

While polytechnics did their best to make graduates and leavers "job ready", tertiary institutions had no control over the labour market, he said.

"Funding linked to employment outcomes would [require] a whole new assessment process that is impractical. I think we should just forget about it."

No-one from the University of Otago was available for comment yesterday.

A spokeswoman said the university supported the comments of New Zealand Vice-Chancellors' Committee chairman Derek McCormack, vice-chancellor at the Auckland University of Technology.

He told NZPA yesterday universities should not be downgraded to the status of employment agencies and was surprised at Mr Joyce's suggestion.

"People in New Zealand with degrees have a really strong margin in terms of their income and are much less likely to be unemployed, and when they are unemployed they are unemployed for a much shorter period than anybody with any other sort of qualification.

"So we are already doing well and I am still wondering what's the problem? To introduce something like this seems to be downgrading New Zealand's very good university system to one which becomes more and more like an employment agency."

Both Mr McCormack and Mr Ker raised Mr Joyce's own tertiary education background. He originally studied zoology before making a career in broadcasting.

"Now, was his education worth anything? I would say it probably was, but it wasn't directly relevant and how would you assess the connection?" Mr McCormack said.

Labour tertiary education spokesman Grant Robertson said yesterday he was opposed to any rigid criteria which would lead universities to focus more on vocational training than education.

- allison.rudd@odt.co.nz