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Speaker 1: Now we're back with the polytechs and their various problems.

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Speaker 1: Staff numbers have been cut by over eight percent due

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Speaker 1: to surpluses and the labor governments teput, king and mess.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we still have too many staff, we find

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Speaker 1: out yesterday relative to how many students are actually enrolling.

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Speaker 1: Now Penny Simmons as the Vocational Education Minister in charge

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Speaker 1: of unwinding all of this, and she's with us.

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Speaker 2: Penny morning, Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: Are you winning? Are you making some ground here? Do

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Speaker 1: you feel like you've made progress?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, we've turned the thing around and we are making progress.

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Speaker 2: We're getting the costs down. We've made those staffing decreases

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Speaker 2: as a foot view stool to go. We've got the

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Speaker 2: legislation in the Select Committee. It'll be back by September.

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Speaker 2: Cabinets will be making decisions about which polytechnics are stood

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Speaker 2: up on one January next year. They'll be making that

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Speaker 2: decision by the end of this month. So we're well

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Speaker 2: on the way. We've got community advisors back worth each

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Speaker 2: of the polytechnics, so well on the way. And look,

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Speaker 2: those staff numbers have had to come down because at

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Speaker 2: their worst in twenty twenty two, they will one academic

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Speaker 2: staff member for nine and a half students, So that's

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Speaker 2: in class average size of nine and a half students.

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Speaker 2: It's just asn't.

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Speaker 1: Viable now it does not do we have reputational issues

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Speaker 1: in terms of enrollment. In other words, when you announce

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Speaker 1: all of this, will people flood back?

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Speaker 2: I hope so, because yes, it's done enormous damage. It's

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Speaker 2: the student numbers have gone down by eleven thousand in

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Speaker 2: the polytech sector over the takeooking Fiesco. So we've got

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Speaker 2: to get that confidence back. So we've got to get

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Speaker 2: the student numbers up, the right size of staff and

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Speaker 2: then we'll be viable. And that's the hard work we're

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Speaker 2: doing at the moment, and that's starting to happen. In

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, student numbers went up by two and

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Speaker 2: a half thousand, staff numbers went down and we're starting

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Speaker 2: to move the ratio in the right direction.

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Speaker 1: Thank the Good Lord for that, Penn, appreciate it. Penny

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Speaker 1: Summonivocational Education Minister.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays. Follow the

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Speaker 2: podcast on iHeartRadio.