Mike Tait

Mainstream politicians like Steve Maharey and Don Brash claim that we live in a democracy with equal rights for all. But equal rights are a fraud without equal educational opportunities. The Labour Party of the 1940s recognised (at least in words) that education was a basic right necessary for social equality. As Clarence Beeby, the director of education at the time, put it, “every person, whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted and to the fullest extent of his powers.” In reality, wealth has always ensured better education, and Maori and Pacific Islanders were particularly disadvantaged. But, in the economic boom that followed World War II, more working class youth than ever before were able to achieve through education - and the country prospered

Labour Government Guts Education System

But capitalism is a system of boom and bust. When the good times ended, the Labour government of David Lange responded by cutting corners, and of course jobs. Finance Minister Roger Douglas oversaw what was probably the fastest, most far-reaching privatisation of national assets carried out anywhere in the world. Rogernomics screwed working people for the sake of a wealthy minority. Only in Nazi Germany did the gap between the rich and the poor open faster than in New Zealand under Rogernomics. Thousands of jobs were lost and unemployment (previously as low as 12 people!) boomed. The resulting economic collapse became an excuse for more cost-cutting. The whole education sector was remodelled along business lines, with local boards and school principals made responsible for decreasing budgets. In 1989, Phil Goff (now foreign minister) wanted to introduce student loans, but the dying government backed off in the face of massive protests (including a 6,000-strong march at Otago). In 1990, the most disastrous Labour government in NZ history fell, but not before they introduced a $1,250 university fee and abolished the universal student allowance.

National Follows Labour

By 1990, enough people were so sick of Labour’s economic reforms that they were willing to believe National’s election promises to return NZ back to a “decent society”. National promised to abolish student fees... and of course they did the exact opposite. National has always been the party of bosses and farmers, so hopes that it would suddenly defend working people and students were doomed. Finance Minister Jenny Shipley’s “Black Budget” deliberately slashed welfare benefits to a point just below that necessary for adequate nutrition. The Employment Contracts Act created a “flexible” labour market by attacking union rights. This meant a slump in union membership - and in wages. It was also the beginning of a decade of fee rises.

They Say Cutback - We Say Fightback

But in 1993, National tried to impose 30 per cent across the board fee increases and sparked angry protests across the country. At Otago university, on 28 September, riot police savagely broke up a peaceful demo, causing many serious injuries - and even bigger demos in 1994. A frightened National government commissioned the Todd Report to try and give the fee increases some legitimacy.

University bosses (who saw their pay go up at the same rate as fees) became more sophisticated in stifling protest, calling in powerless student-management committees instead of riot police. Nonetheless, protests and occupations forced many concessions from a government determined to push privatisation as far as possible.

Rich Kids and Poor Kids

While NZ has never been a classless society, the gap between rich and poor in education has widened fast in the last 20 years. As government funding declines, raising money from the school community becomes more important. Nationally, as many as 3,000 teachers are paid for by “locally raised funds”, allowing for better teacher-pupil ratios, a primary cause of academic achievement. According to a Council for Educational Research (CER) study, reported by wsws.org, the average amount raised by school communities alone is as high as $300,000. Schools in affluent areas also aggressively enter the market for full fee-paying international students. Schools in working class areas are unable to raise much money from fees or foreign students. The Ministry of Social Development has admitted that NZ has one of the widest disparities in education achievement of any developed country, with the gap in reading ability between the upper 17 per cent of children and the bottom 16 per cent wider than most other countries tested, including England and the US.

Helen Clark’s Real Record

The student politicians that led the protest movement were quick to forget that it was Labour that first brought in fees, and staked their hopes in a Labour election victory. When Helen Clark finally came to power in 1999, accompanied by a mild recovery, many student leaders thought the battle was won. But what is the Clark government’s real record? NZ university students face some of the highest fees in the world. Average fees are higher than Australia, the US and the UK, while many industrialised countries, like Germany and Sweden, still do not charge fees.

Under Labour, the average cost of course fees has continued to rise, with full­time students paying about $6,000 in fees compared with $4,468 three years ago. The government points to increased education spending - up 13 per cent in real terms since 1999 and up 14 per cent as a percentage of total government spending from a decade ago. But Clark’s government has enjoyed record budget surpluses and spending as a percentage of GDP has dropped over this period from 6.3 per cent to 5.9 per cent.

What’s more, the increase since 1999 barely makes up for 10 per cent erosion of funding over the previous decade, let alone begin to cover new costs, both necessary (like information technology) and unnecessary (new authoritarian measures of teacher “accountability”). Secondary Principals Association president Graham Young told the Dominion Post that schools have to hit parents up to cover the wider curriculum and technology. "Education is not just literacy and numeracy any more. It's not just a pen and paper. The costs surrounding education are pretty steep," he said.

Free Education for International Students

For government cost-cutters, international students have always been the canary in the mine - the test of how much privatisation they can get away with. It may seem as natural as breathing now, but the idea was only mooted by the Education Minister in 1988. Now the idea that international students should pay the full cost of the course (if not more) is taken for granted, even by people who argue for lower fees for NZ students. But this is the contradiction that has allowed government and its allies, the university councils, to normalise fees and massive student debt (over $7 billion). First international students were hit, then students from more expensive courses such as dentistry and medicine. Despite 5 per cent limit on annual fee increases, Otago university raised medical and dental fees by 10 per cent for 2005, claiming “exceptional circumstances”.

The massive hikes these students suffered made across-the-board increases seem inevitable, and even small by comparison - and those fee rises have continued, step by step, year by year. Unless students realise that there is NO logical end to fee rises in sight and fight back, we will end up with the same fate that we abandoned international students to 17 years ago. Arguing for lower fees for NZ students, but full fees for international students, has led inevitably to the sorry sight of student representatives arguing for “moderate” fee rises. Access to education is one of the best guarantees of an equality that improves everyone‘s living standards - also between nations!

$60K+ for School and a BA

Figures released by the Australian Scholarships Group (ASG), in 2003, suggested that the education of a child entering the state education system this year could cost more than $60,000 up to the completion of a university degree - wsws.org reported in March last year. Parents of pupils at state-supported Catholic schools, who are often no better off, could expect to pay almost $70,000. The ASG is itself a product of the freemarket era; it aims to make money from parents saving for their children’s education. But its the $60K figure is likely to be an underestimation as costs of primary schooling are not included. Schools are not allowed to charge parents fees, so instead ask for a donation. These range from about $20 a child to about $700, the Dominion Post reported in February. While they might be called a donation, they are generally viewed as compulsory charges, and in the past debt collectors have been (illegally) called in to collect the “donations”. State education is not free, Wellington East College principal Janice Campbell, told the Post. "If you went to school and did a few subjects and took nothing home and played no sports, then it might be free. But it's not."

Making Ends Meet

Young women selling sex to pay for tertiary fees was one sensational headline used to sell newspapers in early February. "If I didn't have to do it, I wouldn't do it. If I got a supermarket job from 6pm to 10pm five nights a week, that's family time and homework time," one young prostitute and student told the Dominion Post. NZ University Students Association co-president Conor Roberts calls this “getting more resourceful in terms of generating income.” Selling sex is just an extreme example of the lengths students must go to get by now. Working during term-time, once a rarity, has become common; poorer grades are an inevitable consequence. Worse still, the jobs normally available to students come with low pay and poor job security and working conditions.