Tairawhiti Polytechnic has merged two schools, axed two positions and is not ruling out further downsizing to cope with a potential $3 million loss by 2011.

The School of Humanities and the School of Business, Computing and Foundation have merged, eliminating one head of school position.

Both heads of school have indicated they will not apply for the new position.

The position of academic director, which has been held by the same man for 24 years, has also been cut.

Chief executive Judy Campbell said the downsizing was to cope with an expected $1m loss of funding next year and a potential $2m loss in 2011 — money given to regional polytechnics by the previous Labour government in recognition they were harder to run than those in larger centres.

It also had its Adult Community Education (ACE) funding halved to about $150,000 and faces more cuts in other courses next year.

“Everything we do is a relationship between how many students we have and how much money we get,” Mrs Campbell said.

She was adamant the “significant efficiency changes” would not impact on the quality of education.

“Everything we are doing is improving the quality of education and I think there are ways that we ensure students are better off.”

The academic director position was disestablished because the polytechnic is coming to the end of the Quality Reinvestment Programme — a four-year, $10m government fund to make polytechnics “more effective and better education providers”.

“Because we now have better systems, we now don’t need as many people as we did,” Mrs Campbell said.

“This is not to say that there will not be further changes. I mean, we will be looking for efficiencies everywhere because we need to find money — hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

New Zealand Tertiary Education Union president Tom Ryan said this was happening in educational institutions throughout New Zealand.

“There are major stresses right across the tertiary sector at the moment and many of these stresses go back to decisions made in the Government’s Budget.”

Central government previously funded tertiary institutions with a “bums-on-seats model”. Now it is funded based on the number of students the polytechnic had the previous year.

“If the government had realised this and allowed for additional students, it is possible more student could have been taken on and there might not have been these layoffs,” Dr Ryan said.

The student caps were put on when student numbers were stable.

“Caps should have been lifted to allow more people into our institutions in this time of recession and unemployment,” Dr Ryan said.

After the May Budget, Education Minister and East Coast MP Anne Tolley said regional polytechnics needed to be “credible, viable institutions”.

“I absolutely believe in the role of regional polytechnics, but they have to learn to stand on their own two feet.”

Tairawhiti Polytechnic Council chairman Geoff Milner said beyond 2010 there was a “higher degree of uncertainty”.

“Change is a constant fact, but the extent of how much change we implement is due to funding.”

Dr Ryan said government funding decisions were already affecting institutions.

“We suspect a lot of programmes are going to disappear overnight.”