Students hit at bursaries

Press, 12 April 1979, Page 1

Students hit at bursaries

Hundreds of students from universities and technical institutes took part in a national “day of action” yesterday to protest about the size of the standard tertiary bursary. In Wellington, about 700 students from Victoria University, Wellington Teachers’ College, and Wellington Polytechnic marched on Parliament, the Press Association reports. With umbrellas and protest banners raised, the orderly procession made its way through the city streets behind an escort of traffic officers. At Parliament, the students were addressed by the president of the three Wellington students’ associations and the President of the New Zealand University Students’ Association (Mr Christophe; Gosling). Students want a $9 a week increase to restore the bursary to its real value when introduced in 1976. Other anomalies they have found in the standard tertiary bursary system include abatement, and no bursary for Ph.D. students, or for those on block or short courses. The unabated bursary for students is S3O a week. The abated bursary (for

students living at home) is $l9. About 500 University of Canterbury students gathered on the steps of the university library at lunchtime yesterday to hear speakers, and about 100 then cycled to Cathedral Square where they were joined by Christchurch Technical Institute students, who had also held a meeting. Lincoln College students had also held a lunch-time meeting. The students entertained lunch-time shoppers with a street-theatre presentation on bursaries, and handed out leaflets and the $9 “notes” printed specially for the day by their national body. Mr A. J. Stuart, president of the University of Canterbury Students’ Association. presented an open letter to the regional superintendent of the Education Department (Mr R. U. Roy). In it he thanked the department for recommending that the bursary be increased by $9 a week next year. The recommendation was a vindication of students’ claims that the value of the bursary in real terms had been eroded by increases in the cost of living, the cost of textbooks and other materials.