The enrolment cap story emerged last week after Labour leader Chris Hipkins visited Massey’s nursing school in Palmerston North.
Nursing lecturers Andrea Donaldson and Maree Sheard revealed the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) had asked the school to cap enrolment numbers to 2025 levels, as part of a nationwide decision. This was the first that Hipkins, and most of the rest of the country, had heard about the decision.
When Kaitiaki asked Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ (HNZ) whether it had been involved in the decision, chief nurse Nadine Gray said the agency was not aware of any decisions on a cap to enrolments.
This appeared to contradict Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds who said the decision was based on advice from HNZ about the availability of clinical placements.
The mystery deepened with a written statement from TEC to Kaitiaki saying HNZ was indeed “correctly reporting that TEC has not communicated a cap on nursing to it”.
However, in a twist, the statement said this was because “there isn’t a cap”: but a “managed enrolment process” instead, which was “developed and supported by both agencies”.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a cap as an upper limit on some action. TEC, on the other hand, defined the ‘managed enrolment process’ as holding next year’s enrolments to 2025 levels.
But TEC said if there were enough clinical placement capacity in a particular region, confirmed by the local district chief nurse, then a nursing school could seek approval to enroll more students in that area.
NZNO student leaders have told Kaitiaki the cap was a “terrible” idea, and urged HNZ to instead make sure there was enough senior and experienced nurses on the floor, to provide safe placements for students.
Meanwhile, as news of the cap broke, nursing numbers came under the spotlight again, with Health Minister Simeon Brown denying a staffing crisis at Starship Hospital had forced suspensions of child cancer treatment.
The nursing workforce has risen by 54 fulltime equivalent (FTE) since early 2024, when the Coalition Government effectively took the health reins.
It came in the midst of ongoing controversy over a hiring freeze on nursing staff in Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ; meanwhile barely half of new nursing graduates were getting job offers on the ACE programme, and desperate letters declaring a state of emergency in emergency departments (EDs) were being fired to management.
Based on the numbers supplied by Simmonds, capping numbers at 2025 levels would mean very roughly a year-on-year drop of about 640 nursing students nationwide.
Simmonds previously said there were 11,270 nursing students in 2025, and 11,910 students so far this year. On these numbers there would be a difference of 640. This would vary depending on clinical placement capacity, and the ongoing increase in study applicants since at-least 2019.
Gray told Kaitiaki that HNZ had to work with 18 nursing schools in New Zealand, and given the growing demand, tertiary providers had needed to find placements out of town or region when local capacity reached maximum.
“This is where education needs to make timely decisions about enrolments and how best to work with industry to plan local placement capacity, which will help also avoid costs to the student.”
TEC is a Crown agency that provides funding to 700 tertiary education organisations across New Zealand.