Student loans discriminate against women, says Human Rights Commission

2.50pm


A claim against the student loan scheme will proceed after the Human Rights Commission agreed the scheme may discriminate against women, a students' group says.

The claim by New Zealand University Students' Association (NZUSA) says the scheme breaches the Human Rights Act because women take twice as long as men to repay their loans and pay thousands of dollars more for their qualifications.

"This claim is set to prove what New Zealanders have known for a decade -- that the student loan scheme is unfair to women," NZUSA's National Women's Rights Officer, Camilla Belich, said.

The commission has contacted Crown Law to offer mediation, commission communications manager Kallon Basham told NZPA today.

If mediation did not resolve the problem, the NZUSA could then take the complaint to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, he said.

The commission had not determined whether the scheme had breached the Human Rights Act.

- NZPA