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Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Education Minister Hekia Parata have congratulated the twelve New Zealanders who are recipients of New Year’s Honours for their services to education.

“I’d like to congratulate the 2016 recipients for the valuable contribution they’ve made to education in New Zealand and internationally,” Mr Joyce says. “It’s great to see some of the best being honoured for their services.”

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today announced the Ministerial appointments to the governing council of the new tertiary institution for Canterbury, which merges Aoraki Polytechnic and Christchurch Institute of Technology (CPIT).

The Ministerial appointees are Jenn Bestwick as Chair of the new institution, Janie Annear as Deputy Chair, and Elizabeth Hopkins and Stephen Collins as council members. 

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce today announced two new appointments to the Northland Polytechnic (NorthTec) council.

“I am pleased to welcome Wayne Jackson and Bronwyn Yates into their new roles at NorthTec. They are both high-calibre appointees who bring valuable knowledge and experience to the council,” Mr Joyce says.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Minister for Pacific Peoples Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga have announced $763,000 funding for the Pasifika Education Centre in South Auckland.

“The Pasifika Education Centre (PEC) did not qualify for the full amount of the contestable Adult and Community Education (ACE) funding which it applied for, but I consider the work the centre does around Pacific languages and cultural education boosts Pasifika skills and is in the national interest to be funded,” Mr Joyce says.

Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce and Minister for Social Development Anne Tolley have welcomed the launch of the Canterbury Farm Capability Society Group Employment and Training Scheme for farm workers.

“The scheme is a collaboration between Government and industry to address the skills shortages in dairy farming and increase employment opportunities for New Zealanders,” says Mr Joyce. 

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today announced his intention to establish a new polytechnic in the Bay of Plenty that will better service the tertiary education needs of the Bay of Plenty region.

Both Waiariki Institute of Technology (Waiariki) and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (BoPP) will be disestablished and merged into the new institution from May 2016.

The 2015 Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia have been awarded to 152 students from across New Zealand.

“These scholarships are a special opportunity for young New Zealanders to study, conduct research, or take up internships in countries that are hugely important to New Zealand, both today and in the future,” says Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce today announced nine appointments to three tertiary education institution councils.

“I am pleased to welcome high-calibre council appointees into their new roles. I also welcome the reappointment of a number of council members in recognition of the high-quality governance they have been providing to these institutions,” Mr Joyce says.

“I also wish to recognise the valuable contribution made by outgoing council members and to thank them for their service.”

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has welcomed the release of a report which aligns the levels of the qualifications frameworks of New Zealand and Australia. 

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has welcomed the latest International Education Snapshot Report which shows international student enrolments have increased 13 per cent over the January-August period when compared with 2014.

There were 104,418 international students in New Zealand in the first eight months of this year, 11,760 more enrolments when compared with 2014.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today announced changes to student loan borrowing for long undergraduate programmes in medicine, optometry, dentistry and veterinary science.

From next year all eligible graduate-entry students in these long undergraduate programmes will be able to apply for an extra 1 EFTS of student loan support on top of the 7 EFTS they can already access. This extra 1 EFTS was previously only available to help graduate students complete post-graduate qualifications.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse have announced a new student visa designed to make New Zealand more competitive for retaining and attracting top international students.

The Pathway Student Visa will allow international students to undertake a pathway of up to three consecutive programmes of study with selected education providers. A pathway can be offered by a single education provider or in partnership with other selected education providers. They will be valid for a maximum of five years.

A brand new Trades Academy will open in Southland next year, meaning secondary school students in every region of the country will now have the opportunity to gain practical skills while studying towards NCEA credits and tertiary qualifications, Ministe

Changes to the Māori and Pasifika Trades Training (MPTT) programme from next year will open the door to trade careers for more Māori and Pasifika learners, Tertiary Education Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Māori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell announced today.

Māori and Pasifika Trades Training is one of the key programmes in the skills section of the Business Growth Agenda, to lift the participation of young Māori and Pasifika in meaningful employment, especially in regional New Zealand.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Education Minister Hekia Parata have welcomed a new report showing that New Zealand invests a larger portion of its public spending in education than all but a handful of other OECD countries.

Education At a Glance 2015, which was released overnight, shows that New Zealand ranks in the top two OECD countries for expenditure on both school and tertiary education as a percentage of total public expenditure.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce and Associate Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, Louise Upston have welcomed the announcement today of a new tourism and hospitality college that will open in Northland early next year.

The QRC Tai Tokerau Resort College, will open in Paihia with four student intakes per year. Established by the Queenstown Resort College (QRC), the new college has been developed with support from NZ Māori Tourism.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has announced changes to the Workplace Literacy and Numeracy Fund which will see more workers be able to access training.

“After feedback from employers and staff, I have decided to relax some of the criteria so the fund will be more accessible and an even better fit for businesses,” Mr Joyce says.

Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, Steven Joyce has today joined representatives from the University of Waikato, Victoria University of Wellington and Auckland University of Technology (AUT) to witness the signings of their new strategic partnerships with selected Viet Nam institutions.

A tax bill introduced to Parliament today will allow information on student loan borrowers living in Australia to be shared between Inland Revenue and the Australian Taxation Office, ensuring defaulters pay their outstanding loan balances.  

Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce has today signed a new education partnership with Viet Nam.

Prime Minister John Key and Viet Nam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung witnessed the signing of the New Zealand/Viet Nam Strategic Engagement Plan on Education in Hanoi today.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today announced that Aoraki Polytechnic will merge with Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) to create a new larger tertiary institution that will provide Canterbury-wide access to high quality 21st century vocational education. 

The latest Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) has reflected the softening of the economy in the first half of the year, with an increase in unemployment from 5.9 to 6.0 per cent.

Job growth moderated to 34,000 over the past year, with the HLFS indicating employment fell by 0.4 per cent over the last quarter. However the Quarterly Employment Survey recorded filled jobs increasing by 0.7 per cent and hours worked increased by 0.9 per cent in the last quarter.

The Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, Steven Joyce, has today announced that some tertiary providers and Industry Training Organisations (ITOs) running courses in high demand will be given increased flexibility to grow their student numbers without waiting for annual or bi-annual funding approval from the Tertiary Education Commission.

Finance Minister Bill English and Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce have asked the Productivity Commission to review new and emerging models of tertiary education.

“The tertiary education sector has adapted to significant change over the past 20 years and is continuing to change all the time,” says Mr English.