Older Wairarapa students going strong

STATIC: UCOL Wairarapa has avoided a significant fall in the numbers of older students enrolling in tertiary classes across New Zealand. PHOTOS/FILE

A drop in the number of older students across New Zealand has failed to impact on enrolments at UCOL Wairarapa, says campus manager Angela Hewitt.

The total number of New Zealanders enrolled in tertiary study aged 55 and over has dropped from more than 33,000 in 2008 to fewer than 19,000 last year and the Grey Power lobby group and the national student union recently blamed government cuts to publicity over the numbers.

National student union president Rory McCourt branded the year-on-year fall of older students under National as "embarrassing" and said governments "of any colour have to realise that we need to support life-long learning".

"Older Kiwis need to know that there will be assistance to retrain and up-skill if they lose their job or their industry changes."

Grey Power president Terry King said the Government had cut support for life-long learning. "The Government cuts to allowances for over-40s were bad enough, but preventing over-55s from accessing any allowances or even a loan to pay the bills has led to a crash in the number of older Kiwis studying. Age discrimination is never acceptable and we see now its consequences."

Ms Hewitt said there had been similar year-on-year numbers of older students attending programmes under the Level 3 Student Achievement Component (SAC) banner at UCOL Wairarapa. She said the falling numbers of older students publicised by Grey Power and the national student union fell within the ambit of Level 3 SAC courses and above.

"They attract a certain level of funding from the Government and that article was specifically on that type of programme and on our campus that type of programme has shown no similar changes."

She said from 6 to 8 per cent of students enrolled at the Masterton campus were in the over-55 years age bracket, as "the courses are full-time and that age group tend to be at work".

"Although if you look at some of the other part-time classes in the evening that we've introduced over the past few years - te reo and computing - our numbers of 55-plus has increased. It's about accessibility really for that age group because they don't want full-time study in that age group here," Ms Hewitt said. "We have more in the next age bracket down, from 40 to 55. But we still definitely enrol some students in the older group as well. It's not a huge number but the programmes are open to them, like they are to anyone of any age - if the way we deliver suits them, they'll enrol and age isn't a barrier."

Employment Minister Steven Joyce denied accusations the Government was blocking older New Zealanders from education and said economics was to blame not ageism. He said student loan schemes for those over 55 had not been cut, just the loans to help with living costs, and the number of full-time equivalent students aged 55 and older studying at degree level and above was slightly higher last year compared to 2008.

"The Government stopped loaning for living costs to those over 55 in 2013, because it is hard to justify that taxpayers should pay the high costs of interest-free student loans for older people to leave the workforce and study full-time," he said.