Hon Bill English - National Party Education Spokesman

14 February 2005

Labour continues to let down top scholars

National's Education spokesman, Bill English, today repeated his call for the Education Minister to refund all NCEA scholarship reassessment fees.

Students have only until tomorrow to resubmit their exam papers, at a cost of $20 per paper.

"David Benson-Pope's dithering over my proposal to drop or refund the reassessment fee shows how blind he is to the effects this debacle has had on students."

Last week Labour said it would look into dropping the reassessment fee.

"But that's not good enough when the deadline for the reassessment of scholarship papers is tomorrow. Even if Labour announces today that they will drop the fee, all but a handful of students will miss out, as they will have already paid. Those students must be reimbursed," says Mr English.

"Last week, Labour had the opportunity to demonstrate some goodwill towards the students whose qualifications are affected. Instead, Mr Benson-Pope chose to point the finger at anyone and everyone.

"Labour has let these young people down. It's hardly fair to expect them to now pay for reassurance that they aren't the victims of a botched system".

ENDS

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