May 23, 2002

“The government has done nothing more in the budget than re-establish tertiary funding to relative levels of the time it first took over the Treasury reins,” says NZ First education spokesperson, Brian Donnelly.

“In its previous two budgets, the Labour-Alliance government made severe cuts in the real value of funding to tertiary institutions. The increases in the budget merely go some way to clawing tertiary funding back to levels left by the past government.”

“Rather than being driven by educational concerns, this catch-up is driven by political concerns. The tertiary education sector will not be fooled”, said Mr Donnelly.

ENDS

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