Students trained cheaply?

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 24

Students trained cheaply?

PA Wellington Spending on university education per student in New Zealand is only half that in Britain and three-quarters of that in Australia the Victoria University branch of the University Teachers’ Association has complained in a. state-: rhent.

Yet New Zealand graduates were of international'standing, it said. Average recurring cost per full time student in 1978, with no allowance for staff research, was $8379 per university student, $3284 per technical institute student, and $8125 per teachers’ college student. The taxpayer got both research and teaching from money spent in universities, and the research was relatively cheap and might produce immediate benefits, especially in farming, energy and natural resources, it was claimed. Cuts over the last five years had changed the national staff-student ratio of one to 10.8 in 1975, to one to 12.3 in 1978. In Britain it was one to 8.6.

The association expected the New Zealand rate to worsen by 1984 to one to 12.9 or 600 jobs or 20 per cent in nine years.