Protest about allowance

Press, 26 November 1979, Page 16

Protest about allowance

Geraldine correspondent The Geraldine High School Board believes that the proposed allowances for students would seriously discriminate against the families of rural tertiary students. The board will write to the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) expressing its concern about the proposed changes in the payment of bursaries, and asking that the Government re-think the proposal. The system would generate deceit because people would try to evade what were fundamentally very bad regulations, the board was told. If the bursary was to be

supplemented with a hardship allowance parents would have to expose their total financial position, board members said. Students would not know until next year whether they qualified for hardship benefit, and they would begin their university studies uncertain about their finances. No guide lines had been set as to who would, and who would not, get hardship allowances, members believed. The bureaucratic cost of the whole exercise would probably outweigh any saving to the Government in the cost of student bursaries, board members said.