What is wrong with New Zealand Universities? The Parry Committee on the Universities found itself asking this question often in their recent report. The recommendations on particular problems contain nothing likely to surprise the average student, or anyone familiar with University problems. The need for more full-time study, for better and more buildings and student accommodation, and for better staff salaries have been recognized by University people for a long time. But have they been recognised by other New Zealanders? The answer seems to be a bit depressing. Newspaper editorials on the whole made the appropriate noises about the export of brains and the high failure rate, but there has been no correspondence on the report in the newspapers, and little other public discussion of any sort. The Government has said little about it, but seems likely to increase staff salaries in the light of the Committee's statement that "steps will be necessary immediately to meet what is an emergency." Yet, even with this warning, the Government has not accepted the Report wholeheartedly and may be unwilling to spend the money, about £285.000 per annum, on this urgent reform. The reason is not only the natural reluctance of an administration damned as a "high-tax government" to spend more money than it can help, but also that New Zealand public apathy toward Universities and low regard for University education may make the move dangerous politically. The Committee was aware of this attitude when it said, "We think that the imagination of the public has not been sufficiently aroused to the unique importance of the Universities. ... We find support for this belief in the fact that the public is not yet alarmed about the alarming rate at which the University is losing its existing staff, because of the present inadequacy of buildings and equipment and because of the teaching conditions which, in large measure, stem from the undue proportion of part-time students."

This is one fundamental problem. The other is simply the high failure rate.

The Committee found that among full-time students in Arts and Science classes only 20-25% graduated in three years and. in one batch, 54% had not graduated after four years. This should be enough to shock anybody. The Commit tee has some hard things to say in its examination of the complex reasons for this poor showing.