During the summer break, all students were hit with something that could create a substantial change in the tertiary education environment. There’s now a real possibility that university students in New Zealand will have access to free education. Labour leader Andrew Little presented a new policy entitled the ‘Working for Futures’ plan at the end of January, which provides any New Zealander wanting to gain a post secondary-school qualification with three free years of study.
Labour claim the policy will cost $1.2 billion by the time it is fully implemented, and say the money needed to implement it has already been put aside by National for future tax cuts. The policy itself, although simple in its underlying theory, takes a bit of explaining. The plan will be introduced in three phases – the first one year of free education in 2019, the second in 2022 and the third in 2025. So yes, that means that if you start tertiary education in 2019 you get your first year free but you have to get a loan for your second and third year. If you hadn’t picked up on it, this means you’ve got to vote Labour into power for three terms. Clever? Maybe.
The foundations of the policy are set, but there are still some contentious issues which Little says Labour are currently working through. For example, how will recent graduates and those at university benefit from this policy with crippling student debt, when new students will receive three free years? Also, since it’s only valid for three years, those planning on doing more than a standard three-year Bachelor’s degree will have to take a loan or pay their own way after their three-year entitlement is up. There could be a slight problem once Labour’s first term is complete, if they are successful enough to gain power; Little will have to keep up pretty high ratings in the polls because if National are elected only after one term of Labour, the whole game could change once again.
What’s Labour’s argument for this? Andrew Little and his associates believe that with low-skilled labour jobs becoming more automated as technology develops, many of them will become obsolete. Instead of a high school graduate fearing that they can’t get a post-school qualification because they don’t have the money, they can do any qualification they like at absolutely no cost for three years, meaning they will potentially be more employable for higher skilled positions. The theory sounds plausible!
The policy has significant backing from primary education union NZEI and the Tertiary Education Commission, who argue it will allow people to reach their full potential easily.
Of course, it has got its critics. Parties on the right were quick to fire back at Little’s new proposal. Steven Joyce tweeted a response, calling Labour ‘desperate’ and said they were ‘stealing’ a policy from the Internet-Mana party, the unsuccessful Kim Dotcom/Hone Harawaira amalgamation from the last election. He’s also passed a few comments around which claim there will be ‘short courses, low rates of achievement and spiraling costs’. Act leader David Seymour argued that Labour are just fishing for votes, and free education means quality will decrease.
Free tertiary education sounds like a dream for students in New Zealand, but is it really achievable in our country? Similar plans for free post-school education have been implemented in countries such as Brazil, Germany and Finland. It will be interesting to see how Labour’s education policies develop before the election hits us in 2017 – will they develop this plan to make sure all New Zealanders can receive the best from the system? Only time will tell.