Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association. Vol 40. No. 7. April 13 1977

Where have all the Bursary Payments Gone?

Where have all the Bursary Payments Gone?

Dear David,

ALAN SEES DRWNKARDS, BUMS, THIRVES, IDIOTS, GUNMEN

It must have become painfully obvious that the present bursary system is, by now, woefully inadequate, and unlikely to be increased.

We hear from our leaders that the Minister of Education Mr Gandar is very sympathetic to our cause (increased bursaries) but what we need is action not platitudes. His Budget is not to be announced for some time now, and while the debate about what we should be doing as a body of students goes on, there is a lot that can be done on an individual basis.

As the levels of your personal bursary payments affect you and not anyone else, why not write to your local M.P. and acquaint him with the gory details? After all our members of Parliament are not clairvoyant and they must be confronted with your own personal story. You know — how you are "able" to flat on $13 per week; how you "manage" to live at Vic. House paying about $31 per week when your bursary is in the region of $24 per week; or how single female students for example manage to live on no bursary at all.

Why not bombard the local Press. After all they can't ignore a flood of letters the same way that they can ignore and distort the report of a student demonstration, can they?

So what about it? Forget the overdue assignment. You can't eat that; they don't taste very nice, and write to these people. After all one can ignore some people for most of the time, but one can not ignore a lot of people all of the time. We also have votes.

Kevin Swann.