Aviation Training Funding in Strife

MEDIA RELEASE
Date: 27/08/2004

Attention: Political/Education Reporters

For: Immediate Release

No guarantees for aviation training funding as student debt crisis bites.

An announcement by government made on Wednesday, to review funding aviation training from 2005, threatens to leave students with no qualifications and scuttle New Zealand’s fledgling aviation training industry.

“There are many students who still have a long way to go on their aviation qualifications, and if government funding is stopped, many students will be left in debt with no qualifications, particularly worrying is the future of those students whose providers are forced to close their doors because of an uncertain future,” Students Association Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, President Huia Mikaere says.

“We are also concerned that the government is making assumptions that are not evidence based, for example that students are using the student loan scheme to become recreational pilots.

“This leads us to the conclusion that this is in fact a student debt issue, aviation students are an easy target in the student loan debate because their course costs are high, but their numbers are relatively small, however this will lower the average student loan debt as aviation students have some of the highest individual loans in New Zealand making the student debt crisis appear mildly more palatable in election year” Mikaere says

ENDS

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