7
Thursday, December 7, 1972
He said: "The objective of increasing the provision of funds
for student finance is to ensure that no student should be deprived of
a place in the University for lack of means.
"It is Government's intention to help those needy and poor
students so that they may not have to spend much time and effort in earning
money during the course of their university education."
Commenting on the occasions in which some unscrupulous students
tried to give distorted reports of their financial status in order to
obtain government financial aids, the spokesman pointed out that legal
action had been taken against the declarants submitting statutory declarations
in support of the applications of the students concerned.
So far, the Joint Universities' Committee has referred 20 such
cases to the Courts on charges of perjury and falsification of statutory
declarations.
Seventeen of the cases had been heard by the Court to date and the
fines imposed ranged from $200 to $3,000. Whatever amount of assistance
previously given to the students concerned has been recovered by the Committee.
The student finance scheme was started in 1969. Under the scheme,
grants are used to pay tuition fees and certain unavoidable expenses such
as books and so forth while loans are for the students' living expenses.
The Joint Universities Committee on Student Finance is an independent and advisory body which administers the Government's scheme on university
student finance.
Its composition comprises the Secretary to the University and
Polytechnic Grants Committee, a representative from the Education Department
and representatives from the staff and students of the two universities.
18