Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations, and State Enterprises — New Zealand Qualifications Authority

Kia ora, Mr Chairman. Just with regard to the report for the 2011-12 year, I would like to address my comments to outcome 3, which is about the preserving of, and building on, New Zealand’s reputation as a high-quality education provider and increasing the portability of qualifications gained here, which will make New Zealand a more attractive place for students to come to and study in. I also want to address key initiative No. 6—enhancing the international recognition, understanding, and portability of New Zealand’s qualifications.

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority was charged with key outcome No. 3 in the year under review. We recognise that the authority is in the somewhat unenviable position of having to try to uphold the integrity of the international reputation of New Zealand qualifications while at the same time having its Government market and kick open a door to everybody on the planet, as if to say: “Come here, come here. This is the goose that lays the golden egg. A free-for-all—our education system is up for sale.” So the authority has been flooded with international students, and it is its job to maintain the integrity and the international representation of our qualifications. One of the things that we have seen in the last few days is the side effect of a lack of resources for the authority—a lack of time and resources—with which to create and enforce those systems needed to protect our international representation so that the goose itself does not end up cooked.

The Government was aware over 2 years ago of the current issue around cheating in the period that we are talking about, because it was in 2011 that the authority was given the powers to prosecute anyone advertising or providing cheating services. At this stage the authority has not used those powers. We are not surprised that there have been no prosecutions of individuals or organisations that have advertised cheating services, because, although these organisations might be crooked, they are not stupid. But the review has highlighted that although the authority has these powers, it does not necessarily have the resources to properly investigate such cases or pursue such cases through the courts.

New Zealand First believes that a recent article in the Sunday Star-Times probably sums up the risk that we are looking at through the failure to have resources appropriately allocated to the authority to address the risks that these fraudsters represent to the New Zealand education system. It said: “The students who handed in work that was not their own have [fleeced] not only our universities, but … other students who have worked diligently and honestly to get their degrees.” Particularly, that has lowered the status of all degrees awarded to the international students. It went on to say: “The real damage is to New Zealand’s tertiary education sector. This story should [send shock waves around] our universities and raise red flags over the Government’s drive to bring in more Chinese, and other Asian students, here to study. If nothing is done to rectify the blight of this cheating, all we’ll get is more students with phoney degrees and a greater degree of distrust about our education system.” Sadly, as the Sunday Star-Times sources said, New Zealand is now widely known in the Chinese community as the easiest place to get a Bachelor’s degree or a Master’s degree in any Western nation.

Although we take on board those comments, we also want to acknowledge that the Chinese embassy is working very closely with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and Education New Zealand to investigate this matter. It recognises, just as we do, that all students are at risk of having their education and degrees not valued at the level that they should be, and particularly it risks the reputation of the honest and hard-working Chinese students who are in our tertiary institutions.

So we will be looking to see that in the next reviews that we will do at the Education and Science Committee around the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. We will be putting a particularly close eye on the mechanisms, the affordability, and the investment that it is making to work out solutions to this problem. It is probably timely to do so.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the debate on the performance and current operations of Crown entities, public organisations and State enterprises, and no progress on the Immigration Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.