Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 2. March 5 1979
The $9 Deal
The $9 Deal
Cassidy kicked off with a speech picking up the news covered in a newsletter (Red Notes) her organisation had distributed at the forum: the Education Department has recommended a massive $9 increase in the bursary. This showed clearly, she suggested, that students association claims that the present bursary level was inadequate have been correct At the moment, in spite of the $4 increase announced last year, bursaries are now worth less in real terms than they were in 1975. The Department, at least, has faced up to the fact that students need considerably more money if all but the rich are to have a real chance of getting to and staying at university.
Treasury isn't expected to see it that way, of course, and the new Minister, Merv (who) Wellington is already known to oppose the proposal. If students are to gain the extra money they will need to fight for it, and fight bloody hard. Behind the scenes representations are one thing, however necessary, but they will get nowhere without mass action [ unclear: t] lead the way. In fact, the current proposal doesn't arise out of NZUSA negotiations at all. At its best and simplest, it is a sign of commitment by the department to helping students.
But there is another side to it. The extra money, Cassidy explained, is thought to come from a move to place student teachers on the STB rather than their present studentship, thus drastically chopping their income. University students must stand by their own demands for a decent bursary but not at the expense of taking money away from those at Teachers' Collages. Being part of a move to split the tatter off from the bill of students in this country and continue the attacks on the teaching profession through the Colleges. University students should not approach this this matter with a blind "oh good, we're getting more" way.
Cassidy moved on to outline many of the restrictions facing students: in class sizes, over-heavy workloads and an abortive assessment system, to name a few. She tied the struggle students must wage to defend their right to a decent education to the struggle being waged by working people against the economic crisis New Zealand faces. This crisis was rooted in the unstable nature of capitalism and made worse by the deepening influence foreign capital is gaining in the country. Working people were being made to suffer for the profits of the monopoly capitalists.
The worsening international situation was briefly analysed in terms of the contention between the two superpowers and the threat of world war. Cassidy ended with a rejection of the "solutions" offered by the bourgoise parties and pointed to the need for a united front against fascism and war in New Zealand led by a genuine party of working people, a Marxist-Leninist party. Students had a role to play in this, she said, by supporting the working class struggles and combatting the trends towards fascism wherever it was found.