Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 41 No. 1. February 27 1978
NZUSA Action on Bursaries
NZUSA Action on Bursaries
Bursaries are a high priority for NZUSA this year. This article outlines the plan so far.
NZUSA has consistantly campaigned for an adequate level of financial financial support for tertiary students. This year however will bring the crunch. The encroachments by inflation on the real value of the bursary and the slashing of holiday earnings due to student unemployment has resulted in more financial hardship that ever before.
In 1975 the National Party promised to review the bursary system and and remove the many glaring anomalies in the Standard Tertiary Bursary. As the Government they have failed to honour these promises and to date the recommendations of large Bursaries Conferences held in both 1976 and 1977 have been shelved. This year, election year, students throughout the country must show that they are not prepared to accept any more hollow or broken promises from any political party. Strong action must be taken to show both politician and bureaucrat that student demands are justified, reasonable and pressing..
NZUSA has ten major demands of the government which we feel are necessary to establish an equitable and just bursary system.
1) | Removal of the Abatement: The abatement is one of the greatest anomalies in the present bursary system. It forces students to live at home, often in conditions which make study difficult. Those students who choose not to live with their parents are forced to subsist on $15 per week or to seek part time employment thereby lessening their chance of academic success. |
2) | Immediate cost-of-living increase and indexation to the student price index: This demand speaks for itself. A survey done at the University of Otago in 1977 showed that students there could expect to be short between $463 to $731 over the academic year. The worst off were the first year female students living in hostels as they were hampered by not having the highly paid jobs of their male counterparts while subject to the same costs. The report comments "these figures suggest that no student on a Tertiary Bursary, unless he can work for the whole vacation for a markedly higher than average wage, or with considerable overtime can hope to make ends meet, even if he stints himself severely." The bursary has not even been maintained at the same relative value as in 1975 when first introduced. All other sectors of the economy - beneficiaries, wage-earners etc. have a( least been partly compensated for record inflation figures. All we have been given is a $2 pat on the head. Latest figures available to NZUSA have shown an average of a $10 per week increase in hostel charges throughout the country: approximately 50 % more than the total unabated bursary. How long are students going to accept this? The consumer price index does not recognise the special costs facing students, so NZUSA has compiled a more realistic student price index which takes into account the spiralling cost of text-hooks and related student costs. From these figures it can he seen that Government neglect as regards bursaries is leading to the situation where only students students with private means will be able to undertake university study. |
3) | Have the S.T.B. tied at the same level as the social welfare benefit; The unemployment benefit is the basic level the Government accepts of subsistance. Students are therefore not subsisting. We are not unemployed and should therefore be treated at least as well than those who are unfortunate to be out of work. The grant-in-aid principle of the S.T.B. can only be applied when the holiday employment situation is healthy. When it is as present, we need more than aid we need full monetary support. |
4) | The criteria for payment of the S.T.B. should be full time enrolment at a recognised Tertiary Institution regardless of the duration of the course This clause is specifically for those undertaking semester courses. As it is presently interpreted the law gives these people a bursary only if they are doing the work of two full time courses at once. This of course is impossible. Semester courses may only take a part of the year but for their duration they are full time courses. To force students to take more than a full time course is prejudicial to their health and to their academic success. |
5) | There should be a standard entitlement to two undergraduate courses and one Masters course. Given that students do not always know their plans for the future when they arrive straight from school and that we are living in an age of increasing specialisation, this is a safeguard so that students who experience fluctuations in their choice of qualifications need not suffer. |
6) | Ph.D students not in receipt of a University Grants Committee scholarship should be entitled to an S.T.B. Ph.D. students are at the bottom end of the scale when it comes to financial aid. Most are forced to take up positions as demonstrators and tutors which are not governed by anybody so that wages vary from Department to Department. Formerly all Ph.D. students received a Grants Committee scholarship. However as the number of doctoral students has risen there ha has not been a corresponding rise in the number of scholarships. We therefore feel that those not in receipt of a scholarship be awarded an S.T.B., especially as many of these senior students have families to support. |
7) | The S.T.B. should be paid on a monthly basis for the academic year. This would do away with the surfeit of overdrafts prevalent especially during the first term as books and rent take their toll of holiday earnings and savings. |
8) | Students with Dependents and others experiencing hardship should be able to receive a differential Bursary. The S.T.B. should be a standard rate for one person. In the case of married students where the wife/husband is a student the family should receive two bursaries, and where there is a family involved there should be a system whereby they can receive more There should also be provision for hardship bursaries. |
9) | NZUSA rejects any system of student loans or means tested allowances, and believes that the S.T.B. should be a fully-supportive allowance indexed to the Student Price Index and covering basic living costs. |
10) | Abolition of examination and tuition fees and study material charges in all Tertiary institutions. As part of our Bursaries campaign NZUSA has organised a bursaries petition which will be presented to the House by the Opposotion Spokesman for Education, Russell Marshall. We need at least 10,000 signatures on this petition if we hope to make an effective protest. If you believe that tertiary students deserve a better deal from this and every other government please add yours to the list. |
We have also drawn up a survey on Vacation earnings which will be circulated to students through the mail sometime in March. If you are one of those selected at random please fill in the questionnaire and make sure it gets back to us. We need to have up to date figures on the conditions of our members with which to back our case when we meet the Minister and Departmental figures.
Finally just be interested in your own welfare. Attend forums which will be organised on each campus; write to the Minister of Education and your local papers. NZUSA can only do so much. It needs to be seen by others that we have your support. Join the Bursaries Action Committee on your campus and attend all the forums. More importantly ask questions. Remember it's your future we're talking about and your pockets which are empty.
This year more than any other you have a chance to improve the abysmal bursary position. Become involved and tell your friends, parents and even enemies. The facts speak for themselves.