OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY REHABILITATION AID FOR UNIVERSITY COURSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26852, 17 August 1948, Page 6

OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY REHABILITATION AID FOR UNIVERSITY COURSES

Servicemen Students

Student faces at the University of Otago have changed considerably in the past two or three years. There are more moustaches, more •warthy jowls telling the tale of years-old acquaintance with the razor, more wrinkled brows, more signs of maturity among the students. In short, the average age of students has shown a sharp increase. There is no need to look far for a reason. The war has been blamed for shortages of essential goods, for price increases, for the spreading tentacles of controls. It is also responsible for the older group of students which becomes apparent every time the quadrangle or the Students’ Union building are visited.

Hundreds of former servicemen have already been granted rehabilitation aid to continue with their studies, hundreds are at present taking lectures and hundreds will continue to swell the student ranks for a year or two to come.

In the University of Otago at the present time nearly 300 former servicemen are receiving full-time assistance from the Rehabilitation Department. Each successive year since the commencement of the scheme in”a small way in 1942 there has been a crop of new bursars, the peak year being last year when nearly 350 men were in receipt of full-time bursaries. The assistance granted is primarily related to the measure of interruption to studies through service and there are some cases of men with lesser service claims who are receiving only part-time aid where others are on a full-time basis. Full-time assistance means that married men are paid £5 15s a week from the start of the college course until the last examination date of the year. In addition, tuition, college and examination fees and book allowances are attended to by the department, i In the case of single men the subsistence allowance is £3 8s a week. Certain travelling expenses of students whose homes are not in the university centre are also provided. Broadly speaking, the courses for which full-time assistance is granted are those such as medicine, dentistry, mining, physiotherapy, divinity, postgraduate nursing courses for women and a number of others in lesser demand. In the case of i arts and science courses the usual procedure is to allow a period of, say, two years with fulltime assistance and the remaining period of study with part-time assistance. Law, commerce and technical courses are, for the most part, taken by students who are gaining practical experience as employees. To them part-time assistance only is granted. Part-time assistance means that the student’s tuition, examination and college fees are paid by the Rehabilitation Department. Book allowances are also "granted. At present in the University of Otago part-time assistance is being extended to approximately 500 men and women who served in the forces. Once again 1947 was the peak year, about 700 persons being in receipt of part-time assistance . during that year. The reason for the peak period in 1947 was, of course, the fact that 1946 was the peak year for demobilisation. Shipping shortages and the need for garrison troops were factors which prevented many thousands of New Zealanders from returning to this country immediately after the cessation of hostilities, and there was also, in many cases, an inevitable period of uncertainty as to future plans and movements after demobilisation had been effected. The process of educational rehabilitation has been like a snowball careering down a mountain slope, gathering bulk and momentum with every yard. Up to March 31 of this year over 16,000 ex-servicemen and women had received some type of educational assistance throughout the Dominion. Invariably the advice of professional advisory panels and university liaison officers has been sought before courses have been planned, and, while there have been failures, as there will always be failures, the scheme has been of tremendous benefit to the majority of individuals. An attempt to discover which university course has been the most favoured by ex-servicemen proved to be fraught with some difficulty.. So far as full-time students are concerned, there appears, to be a leaning in the direction of the arts faculty, many students having in mind the improving of their qualifications for a schoolteaching career. Similarly, science courses have been' sought after for much the same reason. In Otago in any one year there are more medical and dental students than anything else, but this is because the faculty schools are .in this city and men come from all parts of the Dominion. The same applies to mining, theology, and physioi therapy. In the part-time field commerce has definitely been the most popular course. There is a fallacious belief that hundreds of men wishing to set up as chartered accountants are being poured forth from the University. The position, however, appears to be that many commerce students are employed in commercial or Government offices and are studying, not to become professional accountants, but simply to enhance their career prospects. Apart from commerce, parttime students have enrolled for a variety of courses, including arts, science, law, and the like—all appropriate to their careers, but not warranting full-time study in the opinion of the Rehabilitation Department. -The success of any academic course always judged, rightly or wrongly, on examination results. In most cases the examination results of former servicemen attending the University of Otago have been excellent. This fact aJone indicates that rehabilitation in the University is being taken advantage of to the fullest degree by most students. ’ % '