Background
The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) in New Zealand manages the Government’s $3 billion annual investment in the tertiary education system. It also oversees the contribution to tertiary education and training that is offered by universities, institutes of technology and polytechnics (ITPs) and other training providers.
Recent policy changes to the tertiary education network created a new investment system in which planning, funding, quality assurance and monitoring are aligned with delivering outcomes.
The TEC needed robust and transparent quality assurance and monitoring information to inform investment, as well as a system to enable providers to focus on improving their own performance, responding to strategic change as well as building their capacity for self-improvement.
Meeting the requirement
Working closely the client and providers, Tribal developed a bespoke web-based benchmarking tool to allow ITPs to identify achievable cost savings, investment opportunities and to highlight areas for improvement.
The performance benchmarking tool covers a range of areas linked to identifying opportunities for improvement including financial, resources, and students.
Due to the small number of providers, the opportunity to benchmark relative performance with like institutions in other developed countries was crucial to meeting this requirement and providing comparative data for assessment.
Outcomes
Since implementing the solution, the TEC has evidenced the following achievements:
- A more balanced and evidence-based perspective on the performance of the ITP
sector
- Deeper insight into performance issues within at risk institutions
- The ability to engage more productively with the sector knowing that discussions will be focused on the issue rather than the quality of the evidence
- Identified areas of high spend and low performance, as well as cost reduction exercises carried out in several institutions using benchmarking data to drive and monitor specific performance improvement plans
- A further roll out to the university and wananga (tertiary providers providing education in a Maori cultural context) sub-sectors illustrating the flexibility and scalability of the solution.
“Benchmarking has started a change process for New Zealand Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITP). They are now using benchmarking to define performance issues, develop action plans and monitor progress towards improvement. Some have used the tool to test the efficiency of future plans and budgets. Benchmarking is enabling institutes to identify significant potential savings”
New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission