President

Andrew Tees

Last week an item appeared in the 'Evening Post' saying that the Treasury was believed to be considering an Education Department proposal to increase the bursary by $9 a week. If the proposal was approved it would undeniably make for a substantial improvemnt in the financial circumstances of many hard pressed University Students who find the present level of bursary allowances to be inadequate.

But at whose expense would this extra $9 a week be granted? — The Student Teacher!? In the news item the level of student teacher allowances seemed to be be seen by Treasury to go hand in hand, yet anybody who knows the level of the 'under 20s' student teacher allowance will see that this is becoming inadequate in the present economic situation. Are these allowances to be reduced to the level of a new Standard Tertiary bursary for all students? The bursary payments of other tertiary students should be improved in relation to the present level of student teacher allowances not to their detriment.

The report also said the actual scaling of the new STB would be done in relation to hostel fees. If this is true, it will have to be closely examined in order to prevent anomalies occuring in any new bursary proposal which might result in unecessary hardship to specific group of students.

At the last SRC a considerable [unclear: amout] of concern was expressed by students [unclear: al] out the decision of the university to [unclear: allocate] the 8th floor of the Rankine [unclear: Brow] to the Library. A chronic shortage of [unclear: s] ace for books and seating has already [unclear: de] eloped with books and periodicals being filed away on desks in the Library.

The decision doesn't even benefit the law students, as they have to go all the [unclear: vy] back downstairs to get from floor 6 to [unclear: fl] 8. There is no direct communication for students between the two. The question has to be asked. Does the decision benefit the University as a whole? It's obvious that it benefits the law faculty but who else?

VUWSA will pursue these questions [unclear: with] vigor bearing in mind that the Victoria Library has just about the lowest amount of money spent on it per student in the [unclear: country].

Well that's all for now and I hope [unclear: 'Sti] dent Concern' will extend to their own Orientation as well as the Library's.