1991: A Student Perspective

The year 1991 initially held much promise. Not only had an Education Minister put his career and political credibility on the line, but in doing so he had also drawn considerable attention to the whole issue of tertiary fees. Although 1991 was the second year of the standard tertiary tuition fee, the pre-election pledge from the then Opposition Education Spokesman, Dr Lockwood Smith, to scrap tuition fees by 1992 or else resign, gave students good reason to believe that this would be the last year that they would be paying $1,300 to attend University or Polytechnic. Ironically, though the standard tuition fee was to be abolished, the introduction of differential fees means that many of them are now paying substantially more than $1,300. Whilst it was the last time that this generation of students would pay $1,300 a year, it was also the last time that an Education Minister would be believed...