Budget 2010

High quality tertiary education is essential for New Zealand’s economic prosperity, now and in the future.  The Government is committed to a high performing tertiary education system that delivers for students, for employers, for the economy and for taxpayers.

The Government invests more than $4 billion dollars in the tertiary sector each year. Budget 2010 focuses on improving the quality of that expenditure and delivering better results.

The emphasis in Budget 2010 is to give more students access to places in those tertiary education organisations (TEO[1]s) that are able to be flexible in responding to the needs of the market.

In return, Budget 2010 places minimum performance requirements on students and TEOs.  They will be incentivised to achieve measureable results as we move towards a performance-based tertiary funding system that rewards high performing institutions. TEOs will need to offer qualifications that students want and the economy needs to deliver a high-performing, highly skilled workforce.

For their part, students will have clearer incentives to complete their courses so they can go on to join the workforce or further advance their careers. This will help achieve faster growth for our country in the years ahead.

• [1]

  Tertiary education organisation (TEO)