Tauranga's Harry Frentz thought he'd found a promising career path when he signed up for an apiculture course with Agribusiness Training Limited in August.

He promptly paid $695 in fees and a further $300 for beekeeping clothing and equipment, but a few weeks into the course, he was told the education provider had gone into liquidation.

Aspiring beekeeper Harry Frentz is worried he might not be able to complete his apiculture qualifications. Photo: Elaine Fisher.

'I was pretty angry and disappointed,” admits Harry, who was one of 20 Bay of Plenty students taking the course in Tauranga.

'We had no warning it was about to happen.

'We turned up to our practical session, working with hives on a farm on Saturday morning, and were told the company was in liquidation and no one was sure what would happen about our training.”

Agribusiness Training went into liquidation on October 21 after the Tertiary Education Commission told it to repay $6.24 million.

The demand followed an independent investigation which found it had failed to deliver some vocational education programmes in line with its funding agreement.

Harry, who had been working part time in a kiwifruit packhouse before beginning the beekeeping course, was attending two sessions per week with tutors. \

The theory session was held in a room that Agribusiness Training hired at the Bethlehem Tertiary Institute, while practical work was carried out on a farm.

Thanks to those lessons alongside independent study, Harry had completed a couple of units towards his qualification.

'So far we had learnt how to build a hive and manage the varroa mite,” he says. 'The next subject was about flowers and food sources for bees.

'I really like bees and enjoy working with them. I was enjoying the course and hoping it would led to a career in beekeeping.”

Harry says his tutors have indicated they may continue to conduct lessons on a voluntary basis, but NZQA unit standards need to be signed off by someone certified to do so.

Unfortunately for Harry he's not among the 1,914 Primary ITO trainees who have been reassured by that education provider that their off-job training will continue.

'We are currently sorting out alternative arrangements and will let you know as soon as they are in place,” says Mark Jeffries, Primary ITO Chief Executive, in a letter to trainees.

Agribusiness Training was conducting courses on behalf of PrimaryITO, and in his letter Mark says: 'Your training is very important to us, so please know that we are working behind the scenes to ensure the disruption to you is minimal.”

However, that's not helping Harry, who is still in the dark as to what will happen to his qualifications.

Tertiary Education Commission chief executive Tim Fowler says TEC's monitoring prompted it to take a closer look at Agribusiness in 2014, primarily because of significant sub-contracting arrangements it undertook on behalf of other institutions.

Agribusiness Training Limited was one of six tertiary education organisations selected for a focussed review by the TEC in November 2014.

That review led to a fuller independent investigation of Agribusiness Training Ltd on the TEC's behalf by Deloitte.

No significant concerns were found with the other five organisations.

The Deloitte investigation found five Agribusiness programmes delivered fewer teaching hours than its NZQA programme approvals specified.

Two of these were significantly under-delivered – the Certificate in Land Based Skills and the Certificate in Horticultural Industry Practice.

Agribusiness is a Southland-based private training establishment which offers education and training in agriculture, horticulture, equine, safety and apiculture.

Tim says Agribusiness knew the rules, and could expect to have to refund tuition subsidies for breaching them.