The first casualty of change at the mega polytech Te Pūkenga - council chair Murray Strong has just announced his resignation.
It comes as the new Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills asked the council to essentially propose their own demise.
The new Government committed to starting the disestablishment process in their first 100 days.
And the Minister says January 1, 2025 would be a "sensible" date for a new start for the tertiary and vocational education sector.
It's an uneasy time being an employee of Te Pūkenga.
"They've been under three years of really extensive change, three years of massive disruption," said Sandra Grey, national secretary at the Tertiary Education Union / Te Hautū Kahurangi.
Three years ago, we had 16 polytechs or institutes of technology, plus 10 industry training organisations.
They combined into Te Pūkenga, with a new head office.
"It was just sort of strategic planning, making decisions in the centre, whereas the actual work is still happening in the polytechnics," said Penny Simmonds, the new Tertiary Education and Skills Minister.
"So they are still doing everything that they've always been doing, but they just didn't have any power to make any decisions. That was all sitting with highly-paid people in a bloated head office," she told Newshub.
Some of those roles, the Minister says, are superfluous and she'd like Te Pūkenga's council to propose a way forward.
Newshub asked the Minister if it's sad to have tasked people in the head office to strategise their own demise.
"Well, I guess that's a risk you take when you go into something new like that," Simmons replied.
"So is that what you're doing, you've tasked them to come up with the figures and redundancies?" Newshub asked.
"I have," she confirmed.
"What was the response to that?" asked Newshub.
"Well, I'll wait and see."
The Minister has given the council her Letter of Expectations.
It includes confirming Cabinet has agreed to disestablish the organisation so Te Pūkenga should not make any immediate decisions that would make that harder.
Simmonds also wants more decision-making at the regional level and wants a report by next Friday on how that can be achieved.
Meanwhile, the union says the Minister, who used to be the CEO of a polytech, should already have a plan.
"If they're going to tear things down, then they should have a plan of how to build them back up," Grey said.
But Simmonds isn't without ideas.
She wants eight to 10 polytechs and a central entity to oversee the training organisations - with some shared services for all.
But that, and any other proposal, will have to be confirmed by Cabinet before any legislative change can get underway.
It might sound like a mammoth task but the Minister has a timeline of sorts. She said the name Te Pūkenga will be axed within six months.
"1 January 2025 will be the sensible time to start everything afresh."
That means the actual disestablishment will take longer than 100 days.
Thankfully for the Government, they only promised to "begin" the process within that time frame.
