Angry students invade National Party H.Q.

Press, 4 June 1982, Page 3

Angry students invade National Party H.Q.

PA Wellington About 60 students from Victoria University marched through Wellington at lunchtime yesterday in a protest which saw some invading the National Party headquarters and others the Labour Department offices. The students are angry at the scrapping of their holiday employment scheme and alleged inadequacies of the tertiary bursary system.

At the National Party headquarters .the lifts were locked and the students were not allowed upstairs. When the march reached Parliament Buildings the students ran to a nearby building containing Labour Department offices, and occupied the eighth floor lobby.

Two students met the Deputy Secretary of Labour, who agreed to-meet a deputation of students later to discuss alternative employment schemes , : for students.

The students" then returned to the. Victoria campus. ■Many organisations joined yesterday in protest against the Government’s package, announced on Wednesday by the Minister of Education (Mr Wellington). . The president of the Christchurch Teachers’ College Trainee Association. Ms Alison Taylor, said that abolishing teacher trainee allowances would scar New Zealand’s education system for years to come. The decision to abolish the allowances and put teacher trainees on the same bursary as university students had “frightening implications.” “The obvious consequence is that trainees will no longer be able to spend their allowances on such luxuries as resources and teaching aids for their future pupils, ’’ she said.

"We will end up with an elitist profession of wealthy, white, middle-to-upper-class teachers." Most people would now choose university over training college because student incomes were the same and job opportunities were better she said. The quality of trainees and, hence teachers would fall dramatically. Social Credit’s education spokesman, Mr Richard Bach, said in Christchurch that tertiary education once worked on a “bursaries pay" principle but now worked bn a “parents pay" principle because of Government policies.

"With no guaranteed work available over the long vacation. tertiary students will have to rely even more heavily on their parents," he said. "Whatever happened to equality of educational opportunity in New Zealand?” In Wellington, teachers and the National Youth Council protested the abolition of the student holiday employment scheme. tion. tertiary students will have to rely even more heavily on their parents.” he said. "The scrapping of the student community services programme is a savage blow

to the fundamental. right of people to have open access to education." said the president of the council." Mr Jim Brown. The end of the programme. with the Govern-, ment's "derisorj’ bursary offer," and the removal of teacher trainee allowances, continued the increasing trend of education for the rich. The New Zealand Educational Institute’s president, Mr Gerry Brown, said that the new scheme of teacher trainee allowances was likely to destroy the whole basis of teacher training by restricting it to a privileged