Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 30/10/24

Podiatrists to get a firmer toehold on healing patients while builders will check the quality of their own handiwork

The Government’s deregulatory impulse is evident in the latest posts on the government’s official website.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: National has found their excuse to ditch fees-free uni

If National is looking for an excuse to get out of paying for Labour’s dumb free year of university, they may have just got it.

The Tertiary Education Commission has admitted that the first year free of tertiary study has led to no discernible evidence that it increased the number of students from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Which basically means it hasn’t worked, because that was the point of doing it.

Robin Grieve: Reimagining Educational Equity

In a recent report by Radio New Zealand, it was highlighted that universities face the challenge of setting deadlines to ensure the academic success of Maori and Pacific students is the same as that of white students. These deadlines are a mandate from the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), which has been striving for over a decade to tackle the high dropout and course failure rates of Maori and Pacific students.

In the past academic year, universities reported an overall course pass rate of 88 percent for white students, while Maori students achieved an 80 percent pass rate, and Pacific students reached only 69 percent. Similarly, at polytechnics, European students achieved an 81 percent pass rate, with Maori and Pacific students achieving 72 percent and 70 percent, respectively. The success rates of Asian and other student groups were not addressed in RNZ's report.