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Our history
In 1992 the Council of REINZ made the decision to become an Industry Training Organisation (ITO). At the time this was a bold move as ITO’s were a new type of educational organisation and departed from the traditional way of training. ITO’s are standard setting bodies who develop the standards for training for the industry they represent. For real estate this meant the developing new standards of training called unit standards that were registered with a new government organisation called the NZ Qualifications Authority (NZQA). This took some time and the new units were not registered until 1996. The qualifications for licensing were developed and registered with NZQA giving real estate a national certificate and a national diploma. ITO’s also have a quality assurance role in ensuring that the training delivered by the tertiary providers is up to standard.
Traditionally real estate education and training had been developed and delivered by REINZ by correspondence. The development of unit standards meant only an accredited tertiary education provider could deliver the training. The Open Poly Technic of New Zealand (TOPNZ) became that provider. The training was still delivered mainly through correspondence but classes were also held in various centres around the country by TOPNZ. Late two more providers became accredited to deliver the national qualifications. Tafe College and Unitec delivered only the salesperson course while TOPNZ delivered all the qualifications. In 2005 the Bay of Plenty Poly Technic also became accredited and delivers the salesperson course and the national certificate.
In 2002 the Industry Training Act legislation, under which ITO’s are governed, changed. REINZ was the ITO however the change in legislation meant that collective representation of the industry at all levels, had to be shown at a governance level. This meant that the Council of REINZ could no longer be the board of the ITO as there was no representation of salespeople at a governance level on Council. The decision was made in 2004 to form a new entity called REINZ ITO LTD with it’s own independent board.
The new board had two salespeople directors (Sally Sheehan and Diane Nelson), a branch manager director (Geoff Bignell), two Councillors (Garry Denley and Howard Morley), a provider representative (Max Oliver) and an education specialist Director (Graham Crews). The board redeveloped the qualifications for licensing and moved to become a funded ITO. This enable the ITO to access government funding to manage the delivery of training in the workplace. On job training was born.
On job training was a departure from the traditional classroom based model and enabled real estate companies to train their own people in house with the support of the ITO. While starting in a small way and with hesitant steps on job training has now been firmly established as a viable and effective method of upskill current industry participants and training new entrants to the industry.
In 2009 REINZ Council endorsed the retaining of the ITO as the education arm of the ITO and provided additional support for the ITO to grow and become a stand alone entity within the REINZ family. A new constitution and board structure will be in place from May 2010 that better represents the industry and allows independence of decision making in terms of skill needs for the industry. REAL ITO is the new trading name of REINZ ITO.
