5,000 - Students will no longer get allowances for postgraduate study from next year. What a waste of potential. The Government should reverse this decision and stop punishing those who are striving to succeed.
300 – Million will be saved now that National has reconsidered one of its ill-considered gold-plated motorway projects.
72 - NGOs raised concerns this week about the Government’s Green paper on vulnerable children. Labour’s response is that it is time for a Ministry for all children.
1 - Group of Labour MPs who might like to invest in some fashion advice.
Here’s a number – FIRST!
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“5,000 – Students will no longer get allowances for postgraduate study from next year. What a waste of potential. The Government should reverse this decision and stop punishing those who are striving to succeed.”
5,000 people up the creek! 5,
!!!!!!
“72 – NGOs raised concerns this week about the Government’s Green paper on vulnerable children. Labour’s response is that it is time for a Ministry for all children.” – Yeah, I’ve heard some Bennett suggests that make me angry!
!
“1 – Group of Labour MPs who might like to invest in some fashion advice.” – You might say that they have a vested interest in doing this!
Postgraduates will have to wait until 2014 when the Coalition can restore the funding.
But, perhaps at the sane time it would pay to not only look at the required post graduate degrees, but try and assess what useful job can be achieved with such degrees.
It is no good MA’s and PHD’s complaining about they cannot find jobs when there are no jobs to suit the qualification.
Cart before the horse perhaps.
The problem is we have a stagnant economy with little growth and a Government without a clue on how to generate growth, they just want to destroy and wreck what we have. So there is not much point in having an educated population especially when there are no jobs here in New Zealand for them.
I think it was a National Government which got rid of the Apprenticeship Scheme here in NZ and changed the Building Codes to make homeownership more affordable and to reduce building costs with cardboard houses and untreated timber.
Once the Energy Companies are gone I guess the average New Zealand won’t technically have a share in anything.
The hope of young New Zealanders of modest means to own a home in the future is just a dream, with the property market booming again in Auckland, through the shortage of houses and the costs of building materials rising caused by a monopolistic supply chain that operates here in NZ.
@Fortran:
There are two categories of tertiary education.
The first being vocational training which prepares a student for a specific vocation (medicine or engineering for example). The second is educational education (history or philosophy for example) which impart skills like critical thinking.
Now the later category of education does not necessarily guarantee a job but it does guarantee marketable skills which have very real applications. There is a reason why colonial administrators in the British Empire were trained in classics rather than accountancy, namely that such an education afforded skills in thinking which could be applied usefully no matter the situation.
Arguing (as you seem to be doing) that students should avoid ‘education’ education in favour of vocational training which has a concrete job at the end of it is ultimately a shortsighted and self-defeating. As the world changes so do jobs. And thus, to be honest vocational training often has a very short shelf life.
I would argue that all higher education is useful. I myself have a masters degree in history, however I am not employed as a historian. Rather, I work for a corporate as a market strategist. Turns out my degree armed me with a skill set which allows me to think and communicate. This has stood me heads above my colleges with a commerce degree (they can’t all be Bill English after all).
300 – Million will be saved now that National has reconsidered one of its ill-considered gold-plated motorway projects.
Yeah – 1950s roads are good enough for the Wellington Province. MMP is all about getting votes in Auckland.
I was actually looking forward to that particular “gold plated motorway project”…
But whatever. I just pay my taxes and try to figure out who to vote for…
The Waikato expressway has really transformed getting into and out of Auckland, btw. A great project.
Not that MPs would know, as you lot fly everywhere for free…
I would be interesting to know how many of the 5000 Post Graduate students quoted have completed their projects in the time allotted, or are on to multiple degrees (I know a few phd and masters students who fit into both camps). The students I know tell me that extensions in funding are a very common practice.
@Jack Rameka – According to a list used in a speech by David parker, Labour doesn’t rate Energy Generation as an important assett to hold on to. Also you mention monopolistic – who monopolises the building supply chain?