£l20m For University Buildings By 1980

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30768, 4 June 1965, Page 1

£l20m For University Buildings By 1980

New Zealand will have to spend £l2om on buildings and equipment alone for the universities in the next 15 years, the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) announced when he laid the foundation stone of a £300,000 students’ union building at Ham for the new University of Canterbury yesterday afternoon. Canterbury students will find nearly half the cost of the Students’ Union building.

Mr Kinsella said that when 50 per cent of students did not finish degrees, taxpayers wondered whether they were getting value for their money, but they should be encouraged that the number of graduates in any one year had in 1965 exceeded 2000 for the first time.

“This is expenditure we must provide for to get the highlyqualified people we need in this rapidlydeveloping country,” he said. The potential development of the universities was so vast that it now occupied the attention of a great number of people, said Mr Kinsella. In the 20 years before the University Grants Committee was established, only 2000 extra

university places were provided. The present situation was: Ten major university buildings had been completed. Eighteen more (ranging in individual cost from £150,000 to £2m.) were under construction. Nineteen were at various stages of planning. Mr Kinsella said the University Grants Committee, since 1961, had spent £7m. This year alone it would spend another £4m. This

would rise at the rate of £lm. a year, so that in a “rollingprogramme” (always five years ahead) of about £28.5m. university expenditure would rise in the next two or three years to £4om. a year. This was for capital works, Mr Kinsella said. The universities also had to have running expenses and bursaries. In 1957 block grants and bursaries amounted to £l7O a student. In 1961 this dropped to £l5O, but in 1964 it was £298, and in 1969 it was estimated to reach £3Bl a student. “There are now 20,000 students in New Zealand universities,” said Mr Kinsella. “In 1980 there will be 40,000. There are 640,000 young people receiving education in New Zealand. This year universities received £lom. of the total £7om. education vote or, put another way, one thirty-second of the education population absorbed onetenth of the vote.” Mr Kinsella said he hoped that the irresponsible actions of a few would not brand all students with a bad name. With this tremendous bill for university education, the taxpayer was entitled to value for his money.