Ashworth said that students will be hired at UP on a permanent, a temporary or a once-off basis. The jobs offered at UP will include positions such as teaching and library assistants or assisting during events such as Open Day.
Ashworth also said that the initial idea of the programme was for students’ salaries to be paid into their student accounts to cover the study fees. However, she said that this is yet to be confirmed. Students will either be paid in full in cash, or 60% of the payment will be deducted from their student accounts and 40% will be paid to them in cash.
It is yet to be confirmed if the funds for the students’ salaries will come from the university or from the SRC. “My SRC budget isn’t a consistent budget and that’s where the issue comes in. For now, as it stands, I think it [the funds] will come from both the university and the SRC,” Ashworth said.
Funds from the SRC’s annual dinner budget, which was cut in half, were added to the study aid and finance portfolio. Ashworth said that the funds were used to buy textbooks for students and that a donation of R50 000 was made to the Tuks Scholarship fund. She also added that some of the money was used in monetary systems to assist students with regard to things such as registration. “The rest will be used for the work for study programme,” she said.
According to Ashworth, the response from students to the programme has been positive.
