Funding protest brings University to a standstill

4:00 pm - BY DONNA BIRKETT

Thousands of Canterbury University students and staff shut up shop this afternoon and prepared themselves for a long drawn out battle over what they see as Government underfunding.

Protesters swarmed into 'The Quad' at the university to hear speeches from student, staff and university administration leaders in an orderly hour long meeting supported by banners and applause.

Association of University Staff Canterbury branch president Maureen Montgomery said she had received a message from Massey University saying they would strike in support next Wednesday from 12 noon till 2pm.

"Your fight is our fight and ours yours...," said the message from Dr Karen Rhodes of Massey AUS.

Today's afternoon closure of Canterbury University is seen by Vice Chancellor Daryl Le Grew as symbolic and representing the starting point of a two-month campaign.

He said that the base line funding of the university was at risk. They could not run a good research and development system at a university that was depleted.

The Government should have fixed the university's base line first, he said.

Vice Chancellor Le Grew described the Labour Government's ambition to create a knowledge society in NZ as "nothing more than cynical and empty rhetoric".

"Fine words butter no parsnips. Any serious determined knowlege-led recovery would have universities in its vanguard," he said.

"But the Government's inadequate funding offer of 2.6 per cent for 2002 makes a mockery of its knowledge society aims." He said the "political chicanery" has to stop.

University of Canterbury Student Association president Jarrod Gilbert the said the Government offer was inadequate.

Dr Montgomery said AUS as a national group had lobbied the Government hard and long about the plight of the universities.

There would an impact on the staff and they would have difficulty attracting first class researchers. Salaries had fallen behind the rest of the world.

AUS was looking at industrial action later this year because the staff could not allow this to continue.

"What is the point of freezing fees if you kill off the institutions to which students pay those fees?"

In a joint statement the trio urged Associate Minister for Tertiary Education Steve Maharey to reconsider the funding deal for universities for 2002.

They urged him to consult with the NZ Vice-Chancellor's Committee, the AUS and other students' associations over ways in which the quality of university education could be maintained without increasing student fees.

- CHRISTCHURCH STAR