Mō Te Pūkenga

Reimagining vocational learning

As New Zealand’s largest tertiary education provider, Te Pūkenga will ultimately have the national and regional reach to become a long-term skills training partner for firms and industries, enabling learners to move between workplaces and other educational offerings and locations as their needs change.

It will be the cornerstone of a cohesive, sustainable vocational education system that helps improve wellbeing for all New Zealanders and supports a growing economy that works for everyone.

We’re helping New Zealand move to a vocational education system that puts learners in the centre – a shift from fitting life around learning, to learning that fits around people and their world … throughout their lifetimes.

Vocational education is changing in New Zealand. It’s a journey that will take time.

This will be a new conversation with learners – from what you’re studying and where you’re studying to ways of learning more in tune with where the world is heading.

It will be a nationally recognised new way of learning that creates real value and real meaning for people – learning that’s more accessible and flexible.

Our vision

Whakairohia he toki, tāraia te anamata | Learning with purpose, creating our futures.

The most well used and highly prized tool of the pre-European Māori world was the toki or the adze. This implement was used to fashion waka, build houses, fell trees and even create other tools. So prized was the toki that there are many Māori proverbs that speak of its application and people who were seen as proficient in various activities were called ‘toki’. The notion of toki aligns with the name Te Pūkenga which also means to be proficient or skilled in particular roles.

By including the word whakairohia in the first part of the sentence, this phrase is encouraging people to upskill themselves, or equip themselves with the relevant tool. The second part of the phrase is about the future. The word tāraia means to fashion, shape or sculpt and anamata is the future. Therefore the phrase as a whole is about encouraging people to prepare themselves with a skillset that will help us all to shape the future.

Our purpose

Te Pūkenga provides excellent and quality education opportunities that support learners, employers and communities to gain the skills, knowledge, and capabilities Aotearoa needs now and for the future. Learners and their whānau are at the centre of all we do. 

Our desired outcomes

How successful we are will be measured by how well we meet the expectations of our Charter. Te Pūkenga is grounded in nine outcomes that reflect our Charter:

1. Give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in all that we do.
2. Provide exceptional learning experiences and equitable outcomes for Māori.
3. Be learner centred. Recognise the diverse and unique needs of all learners, with a focus on the unmet needs of Māori, Pacific and disabled learners, and staff, to empower diversity, belonging, and wellbeing.
4. Partner with employers to deliver relevant work-integrated education that meets skills needs.
5. Be responsive and empowering to staff and learners.
6. Become a connected and future focussed education provider driven by innovation, collaboration, research, data driven decision-making and teaching excellence.
7. Delivering regional flexibility and nationally consistent outcomes. Create-barrier free access, mobility across, and clear pathways within the network for learners.
8. Become a sustainable network of provision creating social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing.
9. Focus on efficient and cost-effective delivery across the network.

About the reform

The Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE) is the most significant set of changes for the tertiary education sector in more than 25 years.

The reforms encompass seven key changes designed to create a strong, unified, sustainable vocational education system that is fit for the future of work, and that delivers the skills that learners, employers and communities need to thrive.

1. Create Workforce Development Councils to give industry greater leadership across vocational education.
2. Establish Regional Skills Leadership Groups to provide advice about the skills needs of their regions to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), workforce development councils, and local vocational education providers.
3. Establish Te Taumata Aronui , a group to help develop the tertiary education system, including the RoVE programme, so that it better supports the aspirations, and reflects the needs, of Māori learners, communities and employers.
4. Create a unified, sustainable, public network of regionally accessible vocational education and training, with a working name of the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology. 
5. Shift the role of supporting workplace learning from Industry Training Organisations to providers , to ultimately achieve seamless integration between the two and to ensure industry needs are met.
6. Establish Centres of Vocational Excellence to grow excellent vocational education provision and share high-quality curriculum and programme design across the system.
7. Unify the vocational education funding system , applying it to all providers and work-integrated education and industry training.