Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds and the government last week released a document that outlines plans to group the weakest polytechnics in a federation and let the strongest institutions stand alone. It will replace the previous Labour government pathway which merged the country’s 16 polytechnics and nine industry training organisations into Te Pūkenga.
SIT operations lead Daryl Haggerty was confident the institution would be able to "stand on its own".
"I do have confidence that SIT can again stand as an autonomous educational provider. The team at SIT have always sought innovative ideas to ensure we continue to perform well and offer relevant and practical learning experiences."
One of the better examples of that was the SIT Zero Fees Scheme, which reduced barriers to education and boosted economic and population growth in Southland for over two decades, he said.
While the full details of how this plan would look were not yet clear, he believed SIT would be able to make more decisions locally and advertise its brand more strongly.
Mr Haggerty said moving out of Te Pūkenga would also mean most decisions would be made locally and this would benefit the institution and the region.
"SIT is a community-centric entity and we have been integral to the development of the region through providing a full range of programmes targeted to meet community needs, and address skill shortages in mainstream and niche industries.
"While any change can be painful, I believe the direction of travel, back to local control, is a sensible one and one I trust our community will be supportive."
Ms Simmonds said after four years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, the previous government’s Te Pūkenga mega-merger had been "nothing but an abject disaster".
The former SIT chief executive believed the institution "definitely" had the potential to become more independent.
"There’s some work to be done around taking out some costs, but definitely SIT has that potential and I will be very disappointed if they don’t undertake that work and get themselves into a situation where they are stand-alone."
She said the government would only allow those which undertook to cut costs and get themselves into a financially viable situation, to stand alone.
"[SIT] are going through that work now with the external financial advisers that have been appointed ... So they will be helping SIT to identify the areas where costs can be taken out and then it’s up to SIT to undertake that work.
"We can’t take the risk of standing up those who don’t do that work and so I am confident that SIT should be able to — the ball is in their court to get themselves into that financially sustainable position."
A decision on the first tranche of the entities to stand alone will be made by January 1 next year. The final decisions will be made by late 2025 for implementation in January 2026, she said.
