NEW ZEALAND (22 Mar 2004) -- Diving schools have hit back at critics of their taxpayer-funded scuba courses, saying it is money well spent in offering training to people who fall through cracks in the education system. Private trainers have been criticised for using taxpayer money to provide courses that education lobbyists say provide few job opportunities. Diving schools can apply to the Tertiary Education Commission for up to $13,139 for a full-year student from the $150 million budgeted annually for private trainers. Tauranga-based Adventure Education receives about $2 million annually to train 1100 students in courses from diving to rafting. The trainer has 15 schools around the country, of which 10 are linked to diving shops. General manager Mark Scapens denied his training centres were turning out thousands of diving instructors for jobs that did not exist. The centres were instead providing courses mostly for people who were in between careers or had fallen through the cracks. "Who is going to pick up the thousands of students who fall through the cracks in the education system? Education is not just about jobs," he said. | | The courses were helping to meet an urgent need for instructors in New Zealand and overseas. About 55 per cent of the centres' graduates got jobs immediately after finishing courses. Asked whether taxpayers should be training diving instructors to go overseas, Mr Scapens said people in many fields went abroad. They eventually returned, helping to create a "richer environment". "Why should the . . . dive industry be treated differently from other growing industries such as beauty, travel, tourism, computing, hairdressing?" But Island Bay Divers owner Tim Walshe, whose shop in Wellington does not receive funding, disagreed that the industry was crying out for instructors; many diving graduates had to go overseas for employment. "If there are no jobs out there this is plainly not working," he said. The Government has said it is tightening private education providers' eligibility for funding. SOURCE - The Dominion Post |
