Tertiary education reform and legitimation in New Zealand: the case of adult and community education as a ‘local state of emergency’

Abstract

This paper explores recent changes in tertiary education policy in New Zealand, which are designed to address legitimation deficits. By offering an analysis of the making, and the subsequent unmaking, of quasi‐markets in tertiary education, this paper attempts to describe how the state dealt with legitimation deficits resulting from providers’ of tertiary education use of the adult and community education funding category to increase their revenues. In providing this description, the paper helps to provide a way of understanding how the state in New Zealand has responded to legitimation deficits by introducing a new regime of governance. The paper concludes by arguing that, in terms of its treatment of category 5.1 funding, this regime is supportive of neo‐conservative goals.

Keywords:

• education markets
• higher education
• inequality
• legitimation

Notes

1. Although they very greatly, to give readers a sense of the costs currently faced by students, universities tuition fees are generally between $3500 and $6000 per year for undergraduate‐level study, and between $4000 and $7000 for postgraduate‐level study (although the rates for expensive postgraduate courses, such as medicine, are much higher). However, some polytechnics and providers of second‐chance education do not charge students fees at all.