Education target of corporatisation plans—students

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 7

Education target of corporatisation plans—students

Political reporter

The New Zealand University Students’ Association syas that the Business Roundtable wants all tertiary institutions to be corporatised. The president of the N.Z.U.S.A., Ms Bidge Smith, said that the Roundtable’s draft submission to the Review of Tertiary Education showed it was using arguments of increased autonomy and efficiency to support plans for greater privitisation of education. She said that this fitted

in with the proposal — involving some Roundtable members — to fund a private university in Auckland. The N.Z.U.S.A. released a leaked copy of the submission’s executive summary, which called for more decentralised and indirect methods of funding tertiary education. It also called for existing universities, polytechnics and teachers colleges to become State corporations, funded by tuition fees, research funds, capital raisings and the sale of goods and services gener-

ally. Ms Smith said that the Roundtable advocated increased tuition fees, loans and an education voucher system, but she said that these had been tried and had failed overseas. The last election showed that the public wanted to see increased Government investment for the long-term social and economic wellbeing of the country. “User-pays” privatisation will result in an increasingly elitist and narrow university system,” said Ms Smith.