The Future

Given the present inadequate facilities parents can on the average expect to have two hours a day for attending lectures, reading in closed reserve and getting books out of die library. The additional 25 children we know will come next year would bring this average down to one hour and a half. Naturally direct participation in extracurricular activities such as attending general meetings of the Students' Association is nil. No doubt non-participation and non-representation on the part of the parents made the president of the S.A. feel justified to remark that until 1985 there would be no space in or around the Union Building for a creche. In this way the isolation of parents and children from the student body is continued, while money is wasted on badly designed space-wasting projects such as the stair-case leading down off Hunter.

It is not too late to do something about all this. To designate a few rooms in the Student: union Building for the use of a morning-creche next year would be a good start. For the creche this additional service might stave off acute overcrowding for perhaps a year. This would fit in neatly with the multiple use concept of the Student Union. If it would be connected with what is going on in the rest of the building via a window so that students could see the children without wanting to be involved this would be a great asset. It would make the building a lot more suitable as a meeting hall and a lor more attractive for just going to because you are lonely or bored. Of course there are a lot of students who would want to come and play with the children. They came before we were disaffiliated and some of them go all the way out to Te Kaianga to help there. At the moment the creche has no room for these people. Isn't it about time the Students' Association lost its cuckoo-syndrome and took its head out of the sand?