Labour would widen student allowance eligibility

Labour would widen eligibility for student allowances as a priority in its second term, Tertiary Education Minister Steve Maharey said today.

Launching his party's tertiary education policy, Mr Maharey said the Government wanted to reduce the need for students to borrow through the loan scheme by progressively raising parental income thresholds.

That would mean more young people would become eligible for allowances and fewer would have to borrow in order to live.

The policy includes plans to introduce scholarship and bonding arrangements to address recruitment and retention issues in key professions, and a focus on professional development for tertiary teachers and researchers.

"Tertiary education is now much more affordable as a result of our fee stabilisation and fairer loan scheme policies," Mr Maharey said in a statement.

"Students are now much better off then they were three years ago."

He said 78,000 borrowers had benefited from the removal of interest for full-time and other low-income students, saving them on average nearly $900 each year.

"This term Labour has set in place an ambitious set of tertiary education reforms to ensure the system can undertake the nation-building role we need it to," Mr Maharey said.

"Our policy for this election signals that a high priority will be to support and develop tertiary staff."

Other priorities identified in the policy are:

* work with the sector to develop a system for establishing maximum fees;

* extend the student loan scheme to part-time, part-year students in approved courses;

* undertake a review to consider the best ways to further support students;

* support and fund new Centres of Research Excellence;

* focus on the training and development of tertiary-level teachers;

* increase funding for the Performance-Based Research Fund;

* build on the literacy strategy to improve adult reading levels.

- NZPA

Full news coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/election

Election links:
The parties, policies, voting information, and more

Ask a politician:
Send us a question, on any topic, addressed to any party leader. We'll choose the best questions to put to the leaders, and publish the answers in our election coverage.