Te Pūkenga loses over $80m in funding, 855 staff ahead of disestablishment
Mega-institute Te Pūkenga has lost over $80m in funding and one in 10 staff as the nation's largest vocational education provider prepares to be split into 10 polytechnics from the start of 2026, documents released under the Official Information Act show. The government is currently unwinding a 2020 merger of the nation's polytechnics into one entity, moving to a system of 'regional governance' in the hopes of making the sector more financially viable.
The documents, released by the Ministry of Education and Tertiary Education Commission to the Greens' vocational education spokesperson Francisco Hernandez and shared with The Spinoff, reveal that staffing numbers at Te Pūkenga dropped by 855 last year, from 10,480 in 2023 to 9,625 in 2024. This equates to about one in 10 roles being cut, including 540 staff at tertiary education institutes and 190 full-time roles (previous documents released by Te Pūkenga projected job losses to be over 150).
A separate document confirmed a drop of over $80m in funding for Te Pūkenga this year, from $949,682,296.25 in 2024 to $869,307,291.80 in 2025. This follows the institute making its first ever surplus last year to the tune of $16.6m, after spending $9.5m across its entire network on 288 redundancy payouts.
Hernandez said the 'lack of support and ad hoc planning' of the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga had seen the sector, its workers and learners be '[thrown] to the wolves'. 'The cuts to courses, in-person training and teaching staff necessary for the government's new model to add up are undermining vocational education for all learners,' Hernandez said.
On Monday, vocational education minister Penny Simmonds confirmed the next steps of the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga would be to break the institute into 10, including a 'federation' which will see The Open Polytechnic absorb Otago Polytechnic and the Universal College of Learning (UCOL) from January 1, 2026. The federation will share online resources, an academic board and other supports to smaller polytechnics which do not have the capacity or financial ability to provide services, at a cost.
The 10 polytechnics also include Ara Institute of Canterbury, Eastern Institute of Technology, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, Southern Institute of Technology, Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology, Waikato Institute of Technology, and a single entity combining Unitec Institute of Technology with Manukau Institute of Technology. Meanwhile, North Tech, Taranaki's Western Institute of Technology, Tai Poutini Polytechnic, and Whitireia Community Polytechnic and Wellington Institute of Technology remain within Te Pūkenga. Simmonds said a decision on whether these institutes will be closed or merged would be decided in the first half of 2026, though they would 'most likely need federation support'.
The Tertiary Education Union has expressed concern that courses being dropped during the disestablishment process are those that can't accommodate large class sizes, such as agriculture. But Simmonds said that $20m per annum had been set aside for the next two years to support certain regions such as Northland and the East Coast, which had a high need for courses that can't be financially viable through student numbers. About $100m worth of Te Pūkenga assets have been identified for sale, with the funding to be returned to Te Pūkenga, she said.
Simmonds, a former chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT), told The Spinoff she understood the number of jobs lost to be in the 'several hundreds', and it had been a 'really tough time' for those affected, but they were a part of the 'financial pathway to viability'. She said Otago Polytechnic, whose executive director Megan Pōtiki told RNZ it was 'deeply disappointed' to be included in the federation, has 'a little bit of work to do to get to a surplus' and could be removed from the federation if they met this expectation.
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sandra Gray told The Spinoff about 10% of the vocational education workforce had disappeared, and she expected another 400 roles were in scope to change. A 'huge amount' of burnout had been felt by those who had stayed, she said, and all staff were currently at the maximum of their timetable teaching hours while they picked up the duties of leaving staff.
'We have staff working at the top end of the workloads, having to work evenings and weekends just to stand still,' she said. 'When you're overworked, you can't put time into each student, you can't work in the way you want.'
Gray said the federation system would be a 'one-size fits all model of blended learning' which she doubted would achieve its purpose. She saw 'no sense' in any polytechnic wanting to be a part of the federation as it would come at the loss of staff and other resources, while paying to access 'someone else's products'. Even if the four institutes that remained with Te Pūkenga were folded into the federation, Gray doubted the system would be economically viable.
Contrary to the minister's position that the un-merging of Te Pūkenga would restore decision-making powers back to the regions, many polytechnics had been 'left in the cold', Gray said. 'They're the ones who are with their students every day, and yet someone in Wellington who once ran a polytechnic is the only one making decisions for everybody without proper consultation … there's no local autonomy at all.'
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