Romeo Fox
Don't know what you mean by 'Ready Entry' - never heard of it. Ions ago there used to be the Cadetship or Direct Entry but these days you are either not a qualified ATCO and can apply to do the course or a qualified ATCO (non - Airways) who can apply for any of the advertised vacancies using the 'External Applicants' link on the job vacancy.
Wet Feet
You need to check your keyboard, you seem to be missing a few keys!
I would be interested in more info on the BUNCH of people a FEW years ago who didn't get jobs. I know of a FEW people a BUNCH of years ago!
Long ago, when you were accepted for Air Traffic Control training you were paid from the day you started your course at Christchurch. The 'College' now known as the 'Training Centre' would generally weed out those during the course who were not doing well, and those that succeeded were then sent to a domestic tower to train for completion of their ATCO license. Even having passed at the college, there was still the chance that one would not rate at his/her unit, thus not obtain their ATCO ticket and therefore have no job, however, the college did a pretty good job of weeding out the unsuitable trainees during their time there and generally once in the field a very high proportion successfully rated. I don't recall any course where there was a 100% pass rate at the 'College'.
When Airways decided to go to a self funding scheme many many moons ago the Training Centre suddenly had 100% pass rate and the students were then farmed out to the domestic towers to complete their training. So now it became the job, unfortuneatly, for the towers to start doing the job of what the college used to do. Not nice for all involved. Anyway, I digress and this is another topic in itself. Moving on with the short version, from the first course there was one person who was struggling at the operational training side ie. passed the college, sent to a tower to complete their training for the ATCO license. I believe their training was eventually terminated and Airways suddenly found themselves being threatened with a law suit - being that as someone had paid money to get an ATCO license, then they should get one! In my opinion, this took Airways by surprise and not the sort of thing they wanted to get involved in and so there was pressure to qualify those few from the first lot of courses identified as struggling, to pass them but not offer a position (avoid a lawsuit). In other words, under the old training system they would probably have had their training terminated. Remember, we are talking about the late 90's turn of the century here where all this self funding /student loan/ ISO9000 thingy was quite new to everyone. Since then it seems the training centre are moving back to the 'old' ways where some candidates are being terminated there.
Wetfeet - I think this is what you are referring to - some examples from 10-11 years ago. I am not aware of any recent (last few years) trainees not being given a position somewhere following successful completion. Your comment that moving the NZ radar system to one building in Christchurch caused a lack of vacancies - what a load of crap.
Reference the fees being returned - I don't know about that side of things or what the policy is. I do not know what happen re the fee's to those mentioned above (first couple of courses)