Do you value your own or your loved one’s ability to communicate? When did you last think about your ability to eat and drink?  

You don't know how important a Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) is until you need one. An SLT works in various ways to help develop or restore your ability to communicate and/or swallow. 

Massey University is one of three universities in New Zealand that offers the programme and the only university in the entire North Island that offers the course. Massey is the only one that offers the ability to study by distance. The ability to study by distance makes the Massey Bachelors of Speech and Language Therapy programme the only equitable degree and furthermore will promote SLT’s studying and working in remote areas where current wait lists can be up to 2 years.  How much language would your child miss out on developing in 2 years?   

Help us save the Bachelors of Speech and Language Therapy (BSLT) programme at Massey University, which is being threatened to be cut due to being financially unsustainable.  Although a financial disadvantage, smaller class sizes allow unique and valuable learning from specialised and knowledgeable lecturers. 

Removing any lecturers from the course and the course itself would limit and diminish diversity in our practice moving into the workspace. Not only this, but no new graduates would be leaving the programme, increasing an already dire wait time and caseload. 

What does this mean for the future? There are approximately 100 vacancies for speech-language therapists, and the average time to fill each vacancy is at least six months. This is an extremely low proportion of SLTs for our population. This statistic will only worsen with the closure of the Massey BSLT programme.

Support Massey to support BSLT.