Fee ‘discriminates’

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 11

Fee ‘discriminates’

Overseas students plan a series of campaign activities to protest against the Government’s “discriminatory” fee policy. The national co-ordina-tor of the National Overseas Students Action Committee (Mr D. Ngieng) said the campaign was . designed to “bring home the hypocrisy of the New Zealand Government towards the South Pacific countries.”

Mr Ngieng said that in the last few years a string of discriminatory policies had been imposed on overseas students. Since 1971, they had been required to sit Latos (Language achievement test for overseas students) before being considered for

places at New Zealand universities.

There had been a drop of 50 per cent in the total overseas students studying in New Zealand from 1976 to 1978. The drop was because of Government cutbacks yet the Government asserted that it had maintained the intake level of overseas students. “The fact that the $l5OO levy for fees does not apply to South Pacific students is a deliberate di-vide-and-rule tactic,” said Mr Ngieng. “On the other hand, the South Pacific students still have to sit the Latos test in spite of the fact that these students are sitting the New Zealand examinations and their whole education system is the New Zealand system.

“I do not think the New Zealand Government is genuine in its overseas aid towards the South Pacific countries,” he said.

The fee for private overseas students had used them as a scapegoat and had been a precursor to introduce the increased fee of 25 per cent to local students. The fee would rise by 15 per cent every year for the next four years. The Government should question the direction of aid policy in its present form, said Mr Ngieng. “Educational aid is the most positive and productive form of aid to the developing countries. The $l5OO discriminatory fee policy should be opposed and its abolition called for,” he said.