1960 - 1979
1960s
In 1961 and 1962 students at several universities – including Cambridge and Birmingham – began to develop their own overseas volunteer programmes in response to a perceived lack of opportunities for graduate-level volunteers. In May 1962 the Macmillan government announced that the Department of Technical Co-operation would part-finance a graduate volunteer programme. A unique feature of the British scheme was the co-operation of autonomous volunteer-sending agencies co-ordinated by a committee chaired by Sir John Lockwood, Master of Birkbeck College.
The initial sending agencies were VSO, IVS, the United Nations Association for International Service, the NUS and the Scottish Union of Students. However due to financial problems the NUS was forced to stop sending volunteers overseas in 1966. By 1966 the British Volunteer Programme was struggling to meet its ambitious targets which required the successful recruitment of around three per cent of all British students graduating from universities and colleges each year.
By the mid 1960s students at some universities had become dissatisfied with the traditional models of student community engagement, namely social service groups and rag activities. They began to press for more effective involvement of students with community problems, marking a transition from traditional social ‘service’ to community ‘action’. As an alternative to rag, Birmingham University and Aston University held a joint Community Action Week in February 1969, where 2,300 volunteers took part in a range of projects including decoration and renovation work, organising parties and outings for children, running entertainments in youth clubs and building adventure playgrounds.
These shifts to a more politicised understanding of voluntary service were reflected both in the formation of new campaigning organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group (1965) and Shelter (1966) as well as the wider questioning by students of the values of higher education. With the expansion in higher education following the Robbin’s Report - NUS membership stood at around 500,000 by the end of the decade - students unions began to take on more campaigning roles, focussing on such issues as student grants, access to records and files, the rights of students to have a say in the content and structure of their education and the need for greater links with trade unions and community organisations. In 1968 the National Conference on Student Social Service changed its name to National Conference on Student Community Action and began to act as a pressure group for those involved in community action.
1970s
In the 1970s the infrastructure needed to support student volunteering and community activities developed significantly. Student community action formed the basis of a heated discussion at the NUS Conference in Margate in 1969, after which a pilot project named SCANUS - funded by the Gulbenkian Foundataion and King George’s Jubilee Trust - ran until 1974. The movement was highly self-critical in its early days and the national leaders, at least, were determined to mark a break with the past. In May 1971 the first meeting of the programme’s advisory group concluded that student community action was only ‘just beginning to distinguish itself from do-gooding’.
The aim of the pilot programme was to develop student community action in universities, polytechnics and colleges across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Two full-time members of staff worked in these development roles, producing a newsletter, organising conferences, and facilitating the growth of regional student community action networks. The work expanded to cover environmental work and by 1974 was known as NUS Community Action and Environment Unit.
With this support network in place, Student Community Action groups flourished in many colleges, universities and polytechnics. By 1978 there were 100 SCA groups, many of which had become registered charities and employed workers, and a further 100 student unions were involved in related work. The activities of these groups varied from ‘volunteer’ or ‘service’ oriented work such as decorating, entertainments, teaching immigrants, mental health projects, work with older people, support for Shelter or the Samaritans (for example at the Universities of Dundee, Leicester, Leeds, Loughborough, Royal Holloway) to more radical campaigns on such issues as alternative education, housing, squatting, radical media, anti-racism, anti-cuts (to public service funding), tenants rights and anti-recruitment (to armed forces) (Bradford, Manchester, Warwick, Sheffield).
Students’ involvement in community action was however controversial during the 1970s, as critics questioned the legitimacy of students’ involvement on the grounds that they did not experience the continual poverty of the residents in the areas where they operated. In 1972 Robert Holman, a Birmingham University lecturer, warned students that they were in some cases wrongly classifying community service as ‘community action’. Moreover, in addition to the ‘lack of continuity, inconsistency and a high drop-out rate’ which he argued characterised student community involvement, Holman identified several further challenges to successful student community action. However, the 1973 report of the Community Work Group chaired by Lord Boyle (Vice Chancellor of the University of Leeds) concluded, ‘it is as wrong to assume that it is illegitimate for students to become involved [in community action] as to accept without question the legitimacy of established pressure groups drawn from professional organisations’.
In 1978 NUS funding for student community action was withdrawn after a financial crisis which saw the collapse of NUS Travel, although it retained an executive member responsible for SCA work. The then NUS president Charles Clarke judged much SCANUS work to be ‘of a low priority’. In its place an independent committee called SCARP (Student Community Action Resource Programme) was established with staff in London and Manchester. In 1980 a SCARP publication suggested that despite the push towards community development or community action by the movement’s national leadership during the 1970s, many SCA groups were still pursuing the traditional community service model.
In 1961 and 1962 students at several universities – including Cambridge and Birmingham – began to develop their own overseas volunteer programmes in response to a perceived lack of opportunities for graduate-level volunteers. In May 1962 the Macmillan government announced that the Department of Technical Co-operation would part-finance a graduate volunteer programme. A unique feature of the British scheme was the co-operation of autonomous volunteer-sending agencies co-ordinated by a committee chaired by Sir John Lockwood, Master of Birkbeck College.
The initial sending agencies were VSO, IVS, the United Nations Association for International Service, the NUS and the Scottish Union of Students. However due to financial problems the NUS was forced to stop sending volunteers overseas in 1966. By 1966 the British Volunteer Programme was struggling to meet its ambitious targets which required the successful recruitment of around three per cent of all British students graduating from universities and colleges each year.
By the mid 1960s students at some universities had become dissatisfied with the traditional models of student community engagement, namely social service groups and rag activities. They began to press for more effective involvement of students with community problems, marking a transition from traditional social ‘service’ to community ‘action’. As an alternative to rag, Birmingham University and Aston University held a joint Community Action Week in February 1969, where 2,300 volunteers took part in a range of projects including decoration and renovation work, organising parties and outings for children, running entertainments in youth clubs and building adventure playgrounds.
These shifts to a more politicised understanding of voluntary service were reflected both in the formation of new campaigning organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group (1965) and Shelter (1966) as well as the wider questioning by students of the values of higher education. With the expansion in higher education following the Robbin’s Report - NUS membership stood at around 500,000 by the end of the decade - students unions began to take on more campaigning roles, focussing on such issues as student grants, access to records and files, the rights of students to have a say in the content and structure of their education and the need for greater links with trade unions and community organisations. In 1968 the National Conference on Student Social Service changed its name to National Conference on Student Community Action and began to act as a pressure group for those involved in community action.
1970s
In the 1970s the infrastructure needed to support student volunteering and community activities developed significantly. Student community action formed the basis of a heated discussion at the NUS Conference in Margate in 1969, after which a pilot project named SCANUS - funded by the Gulbenkian Foundataion and King George’s Jubilee Trust - ran until 1974. The movement was highly self-critical in its early days and the national leaders, at least, were determined to mark a break with the past. In May 1971 the first meeting of the programme’s advisory group concluded that student community action was only ‘just beginning to distinguish itself from do-gooding’.
The aim of the pilot programme was to develop student community action in universities, polytechnics and colleges across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Two full-time members of staff worked in these development roles, producing a newsletter, organising conferences, and facilitating the growth of regional student community action networks. The work expanded to cover environmental work and by 1974 was known as NUS Community Action and Environment Unit.
With this support network in place, Student Community Action groups flourished in many colleges, universities and polytechnics. By 1978 there were 100 SCA groups, many of which had become registered charities and employed workers, and a further 100 student unions were involved in related work. The activities of these groups varied from ‘volunteer’ or ‘service’ oriented work such as decorating, entertainments, teaching immigrants, mental health projects, work with older people, support for Shelter or the Samaritans (for example at the Universities of Dundee, Leicester, Leeds, Loughborough, Royal Holloway) to more radical campaigns on such issues as alternative education, housing, squatting, radical media, anti-racism, anti-cuts (to public service funding), tenants rights and anti-recruitment (to armed forces) (Bradford, Manchester, Warwick, Sheffield).
Students’ involvement in community action was however controversial during the 1970s, as critics questioned the legitimacy of students’ involvement on the grounds that they did not experience the continual poverty of the residents in the areas where they operated. In 1972 Robert Holman, a Birmingham University lecturer, warned students that they were in some cases wrongly classifying community service as ‘community action’. Moreover, in addition to the ‘lack of continuity, inconsistency and a high drop-out rate’ which he argued characterised student community involvement, Holman identified several further challenges to successful student community action. However, the 1973 report of the Community Work Group chaired by Lord Boyle (Vice Chancellor of the University of Leeds) concluded, ‘it is as wrong to assume that it is illegitimate for students to become involved [in community action] as to accept without question the legitimacy of established pressure groups drawn from professional organisations’.
In 1978 NUS funding for student community action was withdrawn after a financial crisis which saw the collapse of NUS Travel, although it retained an executive member responsible for SCA work. The then NUS president Charles Clarke judged much SCANUS work to be ‘of a low priority’. In its place an independent committee called SCARP (Student Community Action Resource Programme) was established with staff in London and Manchester. In 1980 a SCARP publication suggested that despite the push towards community development or community action by the movement’s national leadership during the 1970s, many SCA groups were still pursuing the traditional community service model.
