Registry has Problems

It also has serious problems in working out the new system of bursaries. As Deputy-Registrar Robin Gilliver told Salient, it usually takes a full year to get used to new regulations and the university has very few staff members (three at the moment) who are conversant enough with the new regulations to be able to process the huge increase in bursary applications. 'Usually we have 2500 applying for bursaries, but this year the number has leapt to 4000'.

Even though Bursaries Officer Virginia Stevenson (having been fished out from beneath a pile of papers) told Salient she hoped to have worked out what people were entitled to by the end of April, it seems that short of an incredible amount of overtime, there is very little prospect of having bursary payments ready by this date. (And this is presuming that all the other problems are cleared up meantime).

The implications of this situation are not hard to work out. Students have started their studies budgeting so much for the year, confident they would get bursary help at the end of the first term. This is now illusionary, and the hardest hit will be those students at hostels who need the STB for thier high board payments. All are going to suffer.

What can be done? Attacking the university will do very little, only delay the processing of bursary claims. Individually, students can try to get loans off the banks offering such facilities, or perhaps borrow money off parents or relatives. But that's not getting us very far. Collectively we can perhaps convince Gandar we're really annoyed with the way he's been doing nothing.

If you are facing problems over finance during the next few weeks, please see one of the following: