Beckford replies

In the June 13 issue, L. Jenkins raised several points concerning a question that I asked of Russell Marshall at a recent forum on Bursaries, concerning students teachers allowances.

Unfortunately I think that L. Jenkins has got the wrong end of the stick about the question. The implication in his/her letter is that I would like to have seen the allowances of the student teachers cut so that university students could get an increase in bursaries. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The point of the question was to find out whether the Labour Party still bad any ideas of cutting student teacher allowances as they attempted to do under 'Filthy' Phil Amos. L. Jenkins will remember that the Labour Government saw the placing of student teachers on the STB or at least drastically reducing their allowances as a means of being able to give university and technical institute students an increase without having to pay out any more from the kitty (in fact they would have made money on the deal.) This idea was hastily dropped when there was united opposition from both university and training college students. VUWSA at the time expressed its full support for the students teachers and has remained consistent to that policy.

Hopefully this will clarify the point and L. Jenkins along with other members of this association will support the continued campaign for higher bursaries free from iniquitous anomolies, but not at the expense of the wages and conditions of college students.