School board ‘unbalanced’

Press, 11 May 1989, Page 1

School board ‘unbalanced’

PA Tauranga A Tauranga secondary school says it may have to co-opt a woman and possibly a Maori on to its board of trustees to balance an all-male, pakeha elected board. In spite of the fact that 17 of Otumoetai College’s 36 nominees were female, none was elected. The five men were all pakeha with professional occupations. The principal, Mr Peter Malcolm, said voters selected people with high profiles in the community and with professional skills. Four of the board members had previously served on the college board of governors. They included a lawyer, an accountant, an engineer, a financial consultant and a businessman. The “obvious skills” needed for trustee boards were already present in parent representatives. “And I am jolly sure that if we find a skill is needed we can find a woman who has those skills,” he said. “Even though it is perhaps a little disappointing there are no women or Maoris on the board,

by the time the co-opting exercise is completed we will finish up with a board that does represent the community,” Mr Malcolm said. “Although we have a fairly low percentage of Maori students at Otumoetai College — about 6 per cent — at least one of those people must be a Maori as well,” he said. The only woman on the school’s board of trustees so far was the staff representative. But Opposition spokesman on education, Dr Lockwood Smith, said yesterday any co-opting of people to school boards of trustees should be based on the needs of pupils and their schools. Dr Smith said suggestions that those school boards of trustees which did not have a balance of races and sex on them could be changed was wrong. Skills and experience were far more important than social engineering. He said it would be an affront to parents who voted in the school boards of trustees elections to turn around and say they made the wrong choices.

By

PETER LUKE

in Wellington

University students and the Government traded opinion polls yesterday, with each claiming a public mandate for its stance on the student loan scheme.

First, the Associate Minister of Education, Mr Goff, released two Heylen Research Centre polls. The second — taken last October — found that the public were equally split, with 42 per cent approving and 42 per cent disapproving the proposals in the Hawke report.

An amended version of these proposals, with students paying 20 per cent of average tuition costs rather than of their specific courses, became Government policy in February.

But no sooner were these polls released, than the New Zealand University Students' Association produced an M.R.L. Research Group poll from last November showing 36 per cent approval but 46 per cent disapproval of a "graduate tax.” Differences between

the results probably stem from the terms used in the questions.

The other polls released by Mr Goff was taken In September and found that 75 per cent of those interviewed believed students and taxpayers should contribute to tertiary education, with students meeting between 10 per cent and 50 per cent of the cost.

The more specific October poll included the sug-

gestion that students might have to pay up to $28,000. Under the original proposal that was an estimate of the repayments that would follow a medical degree. The policy released in February — and due to begin next year — would have students repaying 20 per cent of average tuition costs once they were earning more than the average wage.

This would probably amount to weekly repayments of between $lO and $lB.

The association president, Mr Andrew Little, said yesterday that both Government polls were out of date and irrelevant, as they had preceded public debate on the issue. But Mr Goff said that the polls showed that a substantial body of public opinion believed that students should pay at least some of their tuition costs.

Normally higher Government charges or taxes would not win much public support, and in this context the poll results were very positive, he said.