The New Bursary

Labour promised us it would change that. It promised to introduce a "standard tertiary bursary" for all tertiary students which meant the technical institute students who'd received much less than the very modest allowances paid to University students.

In its first year in office Labour did nothing to start carrying out this election pledge. In 1974 the Education Department held a number of meetings with student representatives to discuss ideas on the new bursary system. In August that year the Department produced a paper which suggested that the bursary should be equivalent to the amount of the unemployment benefit (which was then just over $26 a week) and that there should be no boarding allowance. Those ideas meant that students would be granted enough money for them to be able to live on during the University year, supplemented by their holiday earnings.

Then the crunch came for students. First we were told that the promised "standard tertiary bursary" wouln't be introduced in 1975 because of the economic situation. But because the country's worsening economic circumstances were making it really hard for students to live on their bursaries and holiday earnings it had become essential for the standard tertiary bursary to be introduced.

So the NZUSA National Executive went to see Labour's Education Minister Mr P. A. Amos to explain the students' case. Mr Amos said he was sympathetic to us but refused to do anything other than introduce a limited and means-tested $150 hardship allowance that satisfied nobody.