ABSTRACT. The Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE) is a large-scale transformation of the tertiary education system in New Zealand launched in 2018. Under RoVE, all existing Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics have been amalgamated to form a single nationwide institution: the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST) (later named Te Pūkenga). This study employed interpretative discourse analysis (IDA) to understand how the establishment of NZIST/Te Pūkenga was instituted in the public discourse. The official RoVE documents were interpreted within the conceptual framework of discursive closure. The findings demonstrate that the RoVE discourse utilised the discursive closure practices of disqualification, naturalisation, neutralisation, topical avoidance, legitimation and pacification, securing dominance for the official communication regarding the change.

Keywords: organisational change; institutional mergers; discursive closure; tertiary education; discourse analysis

How to cite: Hannigan, B. R. J., & Asmatullayeva, N. (2022). Establishing the merger of a tertiary education system in public discourse: The case of the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology. Knowledge Cultures, 10(1), 68-83. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc10120224

Received 10 July 2021 • Received in revised form 23 October 2022
Accepted 09 February 2022 • Available online 01 April 2022