VET System Amendment Bill

Submissions close 18 June

Submissions on the Education and Training (Vocational Education and Training System) Amendment Bill are now open, closing 11.59pm, 18 June 2025. Toi Mai is preparing our submission.  

Click here to see the Bill, how to make a submission and details of the Bill’s passage through Parliament.  

The Bill: 

• disestablishes Te Pūkenga, replacing it with a network of regional polytechnics 

• establishes industry skills boards to replace workforce development councils (WDCs) 

• provides transitional arrangements for both Te Pūkenga and WDCs to successor organisations 

• enables the provision of work-based training to be managed by ISBs for up to two years, allowing time for new work-based programmes to be developed at polytechnics, private training establishments, and wānanga 

• section 370(e) maintains the requirement that when performing its functions and duties, an industry skills board must act in a manner that contributes to an education system that honours te Tiriti o Waitangi and supports Māori–Crown relations (however, there are changes of emphasis).

The Bill sets out the proposed characteristics and functions of the new entities, the processes for their establishment and disestablishment, and the technical elements necessary for them to function or to give force to decisions.  

Read our comparison of the new ISB functions with the old WDC functions.