Cuts to Uni’s ability to meet needs is shameful

new-zealand-labour-party

Mon Aug 03 2009 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Cuts to Uni’s ability to meet needs is shameful

Monday, 3 August 2009, 8:46 am
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party

Hon Maryan Street
Spokesperson for Tertiary Education
Spokesperson for Trade
Spokesperson for Treaty Negotiations

2 August 2009 Media Statement

Cuts to University’s ability to meet needs is shameful

Disestablishing programmes designed to assist people to prepare for tertiary education is shameful and a backward step, said Opposition Tertiary Education spokesperson, Maryan Street today.

“The government is applying enormous pressure to our universities just at the time when greater investment in them is most needed. This means that the University of Waikato has to consider disestablishing its Te Timitanga Hou programme and axing all pre-degree places at the University,” she said.

“This is a tragedy for those people – up to 450 of them, about 40 percent of whom would be Maori – who would have been preparing themselves to move on to a degree programme but needed some assistance to get there,” she said.

“The government has other options open to it. It could invest more in tertiary education by expanding funding to universities and lifting the cap on student numbers in an agreed and measured way, as Australia and Britain have done.

“But no, it has chosen instead to limit what universities can offer to students who need a bit of assistance to get into tertiary study. These people risk being left out in the cold by the government’s failure to invest more heavily in our universities,” said Maryan Street.

ENDS

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