Tertiary students stuck in line | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

More Wairarapa polytechnic students are stuck on course waiting lists as UCOL tries to make do under funding caps imposed by the Government last year.
UCOL this year capped four Wairarapa courses for the first semester and has a waiting list of 27, chief executive Paul McElroy said.
Automotive and cookery courses were capped due to limited facilities, and early childhood education and nursing because of limited placements.
Mr McElroy said there were always waiting lists for the most popular programmes, including the Bachelor of Nursing and the Certificate in Professional Cookery, but this year waiting lists were longer.
''We can't do anything about it _ the Government only provides funding for a limited number of places. We have to have sufficient placements and resources to ensure we provide a quality education to our students,'' he said.
As at last week, there had been a 16 per cent increase in student numbers across UCOL's three campuses, ''but this figure is changing daily, as programmes start for the first semester and we can assess how many have turned up to study'', he said.
All students had a fortnight to decide if they wanted to stay at UCOL.
He said making a year-on-year comparison was also ''not really valid'' as UCOL this year dropped its arts, computer graphics and advanced computer use courses but added professional cookery.
''So although numbers are up for most existing programmes _ and classes are bigger _ the final total for the campus may be the same or slightly lower than last year.''
The impact of the recession was clear. There was more interest in courses likely to lead to quick employment.
UCOL was also considering making course entry more ''health-based'', taking into account a student's age and study history.
That could require UCOL making judgments about which students would get the most benefit from courses, and what the Government expected of UCOL, he said.
''Like the health system we would have to develop mechanisms or policies to determine who would be accepted into programmes,'' he said.
Ideally, UCOL believed in universal, open entry to its programmes, provided students met entry qualifications.