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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 20. August 27 1979

[Introduction]

The Education Commission should have been the most important commission at NZUSA's August Council. The Education Commission should have been the scene of the greatest debate and discussion at Council. It should have discussed the strength and weaknesses of the Education Fightback Campaign. It should have discussed how the campaign could be best carried on. It should have formulated a concrete strategy to oppose the Tertiary Study Grant scheme. The Education Commission should have spent time working out a detailed list of priorities for the work of the Education and Welfare Vice-President in the third term and for the incoming E&WVP in the first term in 1980. The Education Commission failed to complete any of these tasks to a satisfactory degree.

This situation can be fairly described in somewhat stronger terms than "unfortunate". Right at the moment, 39,000 students see NZUSA in terms of work that it does in the field of education. At this year's May Council, it was agreed that the Government's attacks on education were a challenge to the very basis of NZUSA. A great part of that Council was spent working out, in detail, the organisational basis for the second term fightback campaign. A great part of the success of the campaign can be attributed to that organisation.

Obviously, the TSG is going to require a continuation of the Education Fightback campaign on the same sort of scale as we saw in the second term of this year. Basically, these sentiments were those expressed in the Education Commission; but before the theory could be transferred into practice, time ran out. The Education Commission did not spend enough time discussing these important questions.