Apec: Students kept away from chaos

By Andrew Young

Tens of thousands of Auckland tertiary students are having their traditional mid-term holidays changed to avoid extra chaos around Apec in September.

Students groups claim it is a deliberate attempt to keep potential protesters away from the central city, but are vowing to stir up strong opposition when world leaders arrive.

Auckland University and the Auckland Institute of Technology are both holding mid-term holidays from September 6 to September 20, a week or two different from previous years, which will collectively keep up to 40,000 students away from the campuses.

Apec's busiest days fall right in the middle of the new holidays.

The university registrar, Warwick Nicoll, said the change was solely intended to help students. The conference would bring tight security and heavily disrupt traffic, so it was best that students did not have lectures.

Mr Nicoll said the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1995, attended by the Queen, disrupted many students trying to attend classes.

The former vice-president of the University Students' Association, Sarah Helm, said the imposed holidays could dilute protest actions as many students went home or had to work during the break.

But she said it also meant there could be many students with free time to protest and she was sure there would still be large numbers taking to the streets.

Many students would want to vent their anger at the privatisation of education and the removal of workers' rights, which Sarah Helm said Apec was pushing.

An Auckland University student association spokesman, Sam Huggard, said the altered holidays had to be seen as suspicious given that the Army had used campus buildings for Apec security training last December.