The course with no tools for its trade

Students on a building course at the embattled Te Wananga O Aotearoa have been forced to do theory in class because the educator has frozen funding to buy their tools.

Student representative Nick Cassin said the wananga would not release funds that were meant to be used to purchase equipment for the course.

He said students at the Apakura campus in Te Awamutu had not been told what was happening.

"Our tutor said they had frozen all funds for the tools, and that is until further notice," Mr Cassin said.

He said students had sent an email to Apakura campus manager Lorraine Anderson to say they wanted a meeting to talk about the situation.

Kane Lambert, another student on the course, said the situation was bad.

"It's dumb because we've been doing nothing but theory for the past five or six weeks. We've been waiting on this for ages."

He said the course was meant to be half theory and half practical, but students had been turning up to class forced to keep studying theory because there were no tools for them to work with.

Mr Lambert said the course had also started late. It was meant to start on March 7 but did not get under way until March 21.

Staff the Herald spoke to yesterday were standing by the wananga chief, Rongo Wetere.