exec. members report

Mens Vice-President —Dan Bradshaw

One would be a fool not to recognise the extremely poor state of New Zealand's economy.

Although Mr Muldoon (our sometimes finance minister) stated recently that economic brakes applied last year appear to have worked and that the time has come to stimulate the economy a little there seems to me to be no doubt that the universities can expect a hard time in the near future.

It appears from the statements Mr Muldoon has made recently that he is satisfied with the inflow/outflow of university graduates, that he is not satisfied with the university standards as evidenced by the pass/failure rates and that possibly other tertiary education units must be set up.

The facts that we face are that since devaluation the salaries received by comparable Australian university staff (Australia being our major competitor) are 20 per cent higher than New Zealand university staff, that the price of all equipment we receive from overseas (this includes text books for the library) has risen by at least 20 per cent and that cuts or no increases have been made in public expenditure on various other social institutions.

It would seem that a holding back of expenditure on the day to day running of the university will be made. I will not go into the details of the quinquenium grant system under which universities operate, but it does seem extremely likely that for next year the quinquenium grant will be held at the same level as the present year's grant.

Next it seems that because the Minister seems satisfied with inflow/outflow ratio of academics (on strict utilitarian terms it would seem satisfactory in that he considers that more agricultural scientists enter New Zealand than leave) that university staff salaries will not be increased (in fairness to the Minister any increase in university staff salaries would presumably have to be followed by an increase in civil servant salaries).

Thus we the students are faced with two consequences

The first is that the various material aids to education in the university will spread more thinly over a larger group of people (it is not unreasonable to expect the university population to grow from year to year). The natural tendency would be that the standards of education will slip.

The second is that the university will employ fewer staff and probably staff that is of poor quality. Either quite obviously will also further lower the university standards. Furthermore, once low quality staff is attracted, raising university salaries will certainly not drive them away.

We are thus inevitably faced with a slackening of standards in this university and the others in New Zealand. This does not help anyone— you, me, or New Zealand both now and in the future.

The future actually is horrifying for New Zealand universities and thus its graduates and undergraduates, for through Government apathy New Zealand universities will slip to the level of second rate and third rate colleges that are not really worth the trouble of attending.

What can we, the students do? We can support Avt in its submission to Government, we can make submission to Government ourselves and last we can probably demonstrate.

I find the future of universities black and I consider there is little or nothing that we can really do to prevent this.

Incidentally, anyone who suggests that we, the students, should pay more for university tutition to alleviate the situation will find à la Governor Reagan that the Government would gladly reduce Government spending on universities by the amount we subscribe.

We must fight to preserve the standards of our education: the problem is how.