Female Students are Not Political Pawns

Wednesday, 23 March 2005

Female Students are Not Political Pawns

ACT on Campus today calls on media not to be fooled by the statements made by the New Zealand University Students Association in its latest release titled “Women face unfair diminished return from tertiary education”.

“NZUSA are once again trying to mislead everyone into believing problems that don’t actually exist are worth panicking over” says Hannah Collings, the President of ACT on Campus at Victoria University.

Ms Collings says the only concrete information in NZUSA’s release is that male postgraduate students earn $20,000 more females –on average.

“It sounds dramatic but tells us nothing about the percentage comparison, how many hours are worked, or which fields are choosen to work in, or the choices individual women make.”

What’s more there is no mention of undergraduates, who outnumber postgraduates by more than five to one.

“This is typical, unprofessional spin where the facts aren’t allowed to harm NZUSA’s outdated ideology. The days of women being part of a group for political ends are over. Women are individuals who make choices for themselves, not for NZUSA’s statistics.”

Only a group that extorts its funding through compulsory student union membership and never asks real students what they think could be so out of touch.

ACT on Campus holds no hope that the unrepresentative NZUSA will actually look to address the problems faced by every person who has a student loan through practical, workable solutions.

“There is no point whinging that people are struggling with loans. We know that. We need to look to help them pay their loans off as fast as possible. It is as clear as ever that tax cuts are the only feasible means of achieving this.”

ENDS

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