Holiday jobs

It was realised early in the second term of 1967 that students might find it difficult to obtain the holiday jobs which they required to earn enough to see them through the following academic year.

Your Executive decided that as the problem could affect students throughout New Zealand it would be preferable for N.Z.U.S.A. to handle any action which was thought desirable. Accordingly, our delegation took several remits to Winter Council urging N.Z.U.S.A. to bring the potential problem to the attention of the Government and to publicise it if necessary. These remits were all adopted and formed the basis of N.Z.U.S.A.'s action on the problem during the rest of 1967.

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In August your Executive decided to proceed in four main ways: first, to assist N.Z.U.S.A. in every way, especially on the publicity side; secondly, to arrange a teach-in on the national problem of unemployment; thirdly, to run a questionnaire on student unemployment in conjunction with the Third Term Executive Elections; and fourthly, to make arrangements to deal with the practical side of a possible shortage of jobs through the University Appointments Board.

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Late in October Mr. Mountain suggested that the various University Councils should consider the problem. At Victoria the Student Representative on Council, in consultation with the Vice-Chancellor and the Secretary of the Appointments Board, prepared a Report for the V.U.W. Council with two recommendations, both of which were adopted, to the effect that the Council recognised the serious nature of the problem and that its concern be conveyed to the Government, asking the Government to set up a fund to be administered by the University to make grants to students in established cases of hardship.

Following talks between various Cabinet Ministers and Mr. Mountain, the Government announced in November that the emergency benefit would be made available to students in cases of hardship. As was pointed out at the time, this only answered part of the problem because the real difficulties would arise if students were unable to earn enough to enable them to return to University. The Government, however, took no action on this matter in 1967.