13420 (2025). Camilla Belich to the Minister for Vocational Education

13420 (2025). Camilla Belich to the Minister for Vocational Education: What is the total expenditure, if any, on domestic and international travel by any agencies under the Minister’s responsibility since 27 November 2023, broken down by agency, purpose, and destination?

Hon Penny Simmonds: The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) has spent $492,775 on domestic travel and $21,619 on international travel since 27 November 2023. Domestic travel involves our relationship management teams. We visit tertiary education organisations (TEOs) to monitor and assess tertiary performance and investment totalling circa $3.9 billion. This requires periodically visiting large TEOs at their physical location, reinforcing key strategic messages, gathering system level insights and intelligence to support/inform policy development decisions. An annual deep dive on the financial forecasts of all universities with each Vice chancellor and their relevant leadership team is undertaken by the TEC Chief Executive. We also capture regional insights and facilitate engagements with the sector, community and iwi that align with and support the TEC to deliver on its tertiary education and education-to-employment (careers) objectives. Annual engagement plans are prepared for all TEOs which agree a mix of face-to-face meetings and online ones to reduce travel costs. International travel was for the Achieving the Dream – DREAM 2024 Conference in Orlando, USA which the Deputy Chief Executive – Learner Success attended. The purpose was to provide opportunity to connect and learn from world leaders in developing and implementing initiatives at scale that improve outcomes for learners. Other senior leaders across TEOs also attended this event.