Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 13. June 11 1979
1. Inadequate Grant-In-Aid
1. Inadequate Grant-In-Aid
The underlying principle behind the [ unclear: bur-y] is that it is a partly supportive allowance [ unclear: ich] is to be supplemented by vacation [ unclear: ear-gs]. It is not intended to be a fully [ unclear: suppor-s] allowance (as student-teacher allowances [ unclear: or] a living wage.
But the ability of the bursary to be an [ unclear: equate] grant-in-aid has been severely [ unclear: re-ted] by the inability of the private [ unclear: sec-or] the traditional source of student [ unclear: em-yment] to employ students during the [ unclear: mmer] vacation.
This has become increasingly evident in the 1977-78 and 1978-79 vacations. In the former at one stage 1494 tertiary students were registered as unemployed while in the latter it was as high as 1519. Most of the potential unemployed were absorbed by the Government sponsered Student Community Service Programme.
But a related side-effect of this is underemployment. Although many tertiary students can obtain full-time employment through the SCSP the actual duration of working time is often less than in a full employment situation. Also there is no overtime in SCSP. Consequently the earning power of many students has diminished.
Unemployed and underemployed students are not the only ones affected. Women students who tend to get jobs with lower pay rates, students living in areas where seasonal employment is not readily available, and students who are required by their courses to keep studying over the vacation or to work-in unpaid or low paid jobs face particular problems.
For these reasons the Standard Tertiary Bursary has proved to be significantly inadequate as a grant-in-aid system, let alone a fully supportive allowance, and consequently NZUSA is not only campaigning for a large increase in the base bursary level but also the permanent continuation of the SCSP.