Mr Ker made the comments as ''soft demand'' in engineering and construction caused overall student numbers at the polytechnic to be almost 5% below expectations for the year to the end of April, at 3414.9 equivalent full-time students (EFTS).
Despite being down on expectations, student numbers were slightly up on the corresponding time last year, increasing by 34.1 EFTS (1%).
Speaking both before and during the polytechnic's council meeting yesterday, Mr Ker said the 2% increase in engineering funding announced in the Budget, while welcome, was not good enough given that the country was heading for a skills shortage ''crisis''.
''We know we are heading towards some sort of crisis and that will come not only [because] of Christchurch, but there is massive [housing] construction ... planned for Auckland,'' Mr Ker said.
Instead of giving more money to the institutions, the Government should be offering ''carrots'' to get students to study the subjects, which could include scholarships.
''The learner needs to be incentivised, not the provider, and it's a shame that wasn't looked at [in the Budget].''
In the face of the setback, the polytechnic would be working extra hard to get more construction and engineering students in the second semester.
''We have a campaign being hatched around that as we speak. We feel quietly confident that we will pull back that shortfall,'' he said.
Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce disagreed with the suggestion the Government should be doing more to entice students to sign up to construction and engineering courses. Given that it was working hard to get young people into apprenticeships, it would send the wrong message to also be offering scholarships to entice people to study at polytechnics, he said.
Mr Joyce also took issue with earlier comments from the polytechnic that the tertiary education funding in this year's Budget represented a ''squeeze''. While there had been no large increases, the sector should consider itself lucky it had not gone through the cuts seen in Australia and other parts of the world.
The polytechnic had an operating surplus of $1.723 million, $765,000 (30.7%) less than the budgeted surplus of $2.488 million.
Mr Ker said the variation from budget was mostly due to ''timing''. However, there was some risk around semester two enrolments.
- vaughan.elder@odt.co.nz
