Student Loan Scheme (Exemptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Bill (3rd reading)
Thursday 25 February 2010; 5pm
Hone Harawira; MP for Te Tai Tokerau

The American poet Robert Frost once said about the privilege of a higher education, that “Education doesn’t change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard”.

A cynical view perhaps, but one no doubt shared by heaps of tertiary students here in Aotearoa, for while people prattle on about broadening horizons and intellectual challenges in under-graduate and post-graduate education, the fact is that the issues that really matter to students are simple ones – access and affordability – can they get in, and can they afford to stay there?

The Maori Party believes that a good tertiary education is an investment in our country’s future, that it should be freely available to all, and that students should get an allowance set at the same level of the unemployment benefit – and we’re a long away from that point at the moment.

Mr Speaker, this bill raises the issue of eligibility – such as allowing students who live mainly in their homelands of Niue, the Cook Islands and Tokelau to get interest-free student loans while they’re here, as a way of encouraging them to go back and help development in their homelands after they get their degrees, a notion which fits well with our kaupapa of supporting our whänaunga right across the Pacific to feel free to come here to gain the skills they require to help build their nations.

The second area is about enabling students enrolled with a NZ institute who are on approved full-time overseas study to also access interest-free loans, a call welcomed by the New Zealand Vice Chancellors Committee because it recognises the internationalization of tertiary education, and reflects the increasingly international nature of a great deal of university research.

Both areas will increase the number of students who can get interest-free loans which is a good thing in itself, and given the importance of tertiary education to our economy, no doubt will receive support from right across the house.

Another reason we support this Bill Mr Speaker, is because Te Mana Akonga themselves, the New Zealand Students Association, welcomes the commitment to look at increasing the income threshold for those getting a student loan, as well as the decision to shift the interest rate mechanism from regulation to the Act, making it more transparent to understand and easier to monitor.

The Maori Party still raises its concerns:
• about the philosophy of user-pays continuing to dominate our thinking about tertiary education, when we should be more focused on investing in keeping our students here;
• about the deplorable state of secondary education which sees too many Maori students still leaving school without the necessary qualifications to even qualify for tertiary education, and;
• about the cuts in funding for adult education and second-chance learning which make these inequalities even greater;
but in the interest of opening up the tertiary sector to a greater number of students, we will be supporting this bill.

ENDS

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