Editorial

Before Commenting upon the contents of our leading article—"Are Part-Time Students Being Victimized"—it is fair to point out that M. J. M. was unaware at the time the article was written that the latest rules regarding part-time study (which have just been made public) are not as rigid as they may first seem; and that the professorial board still possesses a lot of discretionary power which could be exercised where cases warrant exception to the general rule. So that where it is obvious a part-time student can easily attempt more than the equivalent of two arts units in a year, he would be permitted to do so. Hence, the professorial board will deserve criticism only when it has been found to be exercising this discretionary right improperly; or when it has failed altogether to exercise the discretionary power when the occasion demands it. But whether or not this privilege of waiving the rule (that part-timers are to do only two units a year) is improperly used, remains to be seen. Similarly, we cannot tell yet whether or not the board will refuse to use the privilege altogether.

M. J. M. asserts that part-time students in most cases have to gain practical experience anyway; and that the New Zealand "social-economic situation" requires an education system different from that of, say: England or the United States of America. The professorial board is in effect restricting the chances of the average New Zealander of enjoying a university education. The part-timer is being cruelly treated. The ruling concerning the number of units a part-timer may take in a year is unfair.

Those people who doubt the professorial board's ability to give a fair ruling in all the cases it deals with may, however, want to persist in their argument that the new rule is unjust and unnecessary. These people will have to look at the method whereby the professorial board reached its decision regarding the rule. They will have to study and evaluate the findings of the Parry Report; they will have to make a careful scrutiny of the New Zealand social-economic conditions. is M.J.M. right in his facts? Or has he considered All the facts? It may be that the professorial board detests the necessity for the rule as much as the part-time student population; it may be that the evils of unguided and unrestricted part-time study are so great that they Have to be counteracted some way or other, even at the expense of risking cases where, because the board is not always infallible, unwarranted hardship is caused to part-time students.

Indeed, it may not be the rule which is wrong; but that the New Zealand university education system existing at present is unsuitable, so that the creation of the rule is a step towards correcting the whole system. For we witness before us a conflict of forces: the necessity for part-time study with its unpleasant consequences, and the desire to remove the cause for that necessity. And what M. J. M. calls our "social environment" is perhaps that very evil cause which the board hopes to remove.

20 March, 1961