Students protest Victoria University of Wellington language cuts

  • 24/10/2016
Victoria University of Wellington (file)
Victoria University of Wellington (file)

A consultation document has been proposed to slash staff numbers in languages at Victoria University of Wellington.

The proposed changes will see staff numbers cut in Italian, French, Spanish and German within the School of Languages and Culture.

German student ambassador Katherine Kooistra says German staff numbers will be slashed by 43 percent.

"Next year in 2017 we'll be paying more, but our education that we're receiving in terms of our European languages will actually be decreasing because the staff will be overworked, overstressed, and won't be able to deal with the amount of students that they've got enrolled," she says.

Ms Kooistra says students are outraged by the proposed cuts, and a group of students are protesting.

"Students are incredibly outraged with the changes. We've got a Facebook group at the moment, and we've just been going over ideas about what we could do, we've already got a petition," she says.

She says becoming multi-lingual is increasingly important in this day and age.

"New Zealand is so far away from other countries and monolingualism is in a sense a disability and it's crippling us," she says.

Newshub.