Higher Education will boost the economy

Most recent commentaries on Hawke's Bay draw attention to our near bottom rating in many social and economic indices. Some also draw attention to disparity in the educational qualifications of our labour force, compared with national averages.

The recently released Winder Report on economic prosperity reveals only 14.2% of the Hawke's Bay/Gisborne population have university qualifications, compared to 27% nationally. This is a huge disparity, and is a serious indictment on our business and political leaders. Formal qualifications measure both knowledge and academic achievement, and therefore give a strong indication of having the skills to do the job.     Simple logic suggests if we do not have a work force with the right qualifications, we will not attract high skilled, high paying jobs..

The report also shows we have a very much higher proportion of jobs in lower paid occupations such as Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (16.4% verses 7.1% nationally) where incomes are just half the average for all employment categories, plus many fewer (5.3% verses 8.5%) in the very much higher paid Professional, Scientific and Technical categories. Not surprising of course because we are a centre of primary production.

That Hawke's Bay has a lower proportion of academically qualified people  should be of concern to us all. We may find it difficult to attract businesses and organisations that need highly qualified people, and our businesses may not be able to compete  against businesses elsewhere. We may also miss out on knowledge industries and all this means people are more likely to earn lower incomes.

It also suggests as a community we may not be placing a high value on formal qualifications. That is parents are less likely to see higher education as a priority for their children, and if the problem becomes multi-generational  we risk ending up with a general dumbing down of the population.

There are a range of reasons for our poor figures but the single most significant has to be the lack of educational opportunities for our young people. This is not to suggest the EIT is doing a poor job, but rather we need additional opportunities. We simply do not have the range of tertiary education offerings of other comparable centres. Polytechnic education is part of the mix, not a substitute for university level qualifications.

We are the 5th largest urban area in the country after the three main centres and Hamilton all of which with Dunedin and Palmerston North, have both stand alone universities, and polytechnics of at least comparable size and offering to our own EIT. In fact Auckland Wellington and Christchurch have multiple university campuses.

We are also missing out on the huge economic injection a University campus would provide. A just released investigation has estimated direct spending by students and staff, plus downstream effects from the University of Otago to be  worth $780 million dollars annually to Dunedin, providing 16% of GDP and 17 000 full time equivalent jobs.

Whilst Hawke's Bay is unlikely to gain a similar 21 000 student facility, a stand alone branch campus of an existing institution is essential. As most university funding comes from Government our own campus will not inflict increased costs on ratepayers. Additionally Hawke's Bay parents and their children will save huge sums now being spent obtaining university level qualifications elsewhere.

Hawke's Bay has a near static population because so many people leave the area. Offering better educational opportunities would help stem the outflow especially of our young people.

We must not permit Government to fob us off any longer.  We must have a more skilled and better educated workforce if we want a dynamic economy. It's time we got serious about this issue