We’re excited to bring you the latest updates, insights, and stories from our journey towards building a skilled, and qualified workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand, across the health, education, community and social sectors. Thank you for being a part of our workforce community. Each edition will keep you informed about our programmes, initiatives, and events, as well as share resources to help you either as a provider or a person interested in the work we do.
In case you missed the announcement by the Minister for Vocational Education Penny Simmonds last week, it has been confirmed that a total of eight ISBs will be operational from 1 January 2026, once legislation is passed later this year.
This includes a Health and Community ISB. At this stage it looks like almost all of the Toitū te Waiora work programme will transfer to this ISB, with the exception of beauty, spa and skin. There is updated information on the TEC website.
You can read the submission we made on the TEC’s consultation on the proposed model for the number and coverage groupings for ISBs on our website.
We expect an announcement on the membership of the Establishment Advisory Groups in the coming weeks. Once set up they will undertake consultation with industry around the detailed coverage areas of each ISB.
Since our last update in June, we have also made a detailed submission on the Vocational Education and Training Amendment Bill currently before the Select Committee. As part of this, we wrote to the relevant Ministers and opposition MPs to highlight some of the issues we raised in our submission, relevant to their portfolios.
We’ve also made a submission to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority on its fee setting consultation.
Any future submissions we make will also be published on our website. In the meantime, we continue to work with TEC on the VET reform while continuing to deliver on our ambitious work programme which you can read about below.
Ngā mihi,
Sean McKinley,
Chief Executive, Toitū te Waiora
As we enter a new financial year, we’ve taken a look back at what we have achieved during 2024/25. We’re proud of the skill standards, micro-credentials and qualifications we’ve developed and the moderations we have completed during this financial year.
Check out our new NIAG hub. Here you’ll find everything you need to know about our social services and early childhood education NIAGs, including member bios, minutes of the first two meetings and actions.
We are gaining plenty of insights and understanding of both sectors and we’re looking forward to continuing to progress this mahi over the coming months.
We are continuing to meet weekly with our Disability Support Consultation Group – a rōpū of subject matter experts from across the disability sector, including those with lived experience.
The first tranche of draft Level 3 role-specific skill standards are now with the rōpū for consultation with work on Level 4 also underway. We are also working on the Level 3 and 4 qualification documents which we are on track to complete within the next month.
For any further information on this project check out our website.
There are some important dates providers need to be aware of in order to meet NZQA submission timeframes, ahead of the disestablishment of workforce development councils on 31 December.
The next key dates for programme and micro-credential endorsement and support are:
If you are thinking of updating a programme or assessment material we recommend you do this before September. If we receive high volumes after then, we won’t be able to guarantee completion by December. Further information can be found on our website.
