Jevelopments

It The lura Medical School

From a Special Correspondent

Suva, Dec. 20.

GRADUATION Day at the Central J Medical School Suva was par ticularly interesting this year.

At the graduation (December 17) was announced that Fijian girls *e to be admitted as students for le first time next year; a Papuan udent was one of the graduating ass (which included, as well, six ijians, one Tongan, two Western imoans and three Caroline landers) and it marked the end the first year in which students om United States Trust Terri ries attended the school.

Five Fijian girls will enter the edical School next year and take te general medical course.

Tiether they will eventually actice as general AMPs, or aether they will specialise in me branch of child or female salth was not made clear. The ;ting Governor, who presented the aduating class with their plomas, said that it was hoped at the five girl students were the rerunners of more who will be imen practitioners throughout the rious territories served by the bool.

Seven students from Papua-New jinea went to the School in early 17. One was found to be suffering )m TB and was sent home and one i not have the necessary back □und education and was sent to e Queen Victoria school for jian boys. The other five lads tered the school. One of them s now graduated, rhe experiment of sending lads )m P-NG to Suva has not been peated until this year (1952), len, apparently encouraged by the st graduation, it is reported that ree will be sent. The general ucation of the new students will better than that of the original NG students—although some of e American Trust Territory uths were in no better shape ucationally than those from NG. me of the American Islanders ake only Japanese.

Overcrowding

IHE American Trust Territory students, about 80 of them, arrived in Fiji early last year, ley were all from the medical 1001 which was set up at Guam :er the war and closed at the end last year, possibly because of US ■vy commitments elsewhere; ssibly on the score of expense. rhe Central Medical School, with normal quota of students, was

crowded. With the addition from American territories, it bulged.

Livmg conditions for the new arrivals last year could be called, at best, makeshift. Lecturers could not cope with the added number of pupils and it has recently been admitted that two of the three first year classes were called upon at the end of the year to sit for a science exam for which they had had no lectures.

The US Government made available the services of Dr. H. L. Cloud, who is in charge of the dental school; but there are no other additional full time lecturers.

The official attitude seems to be, “It’s crowded but we get along—and no one complains.”

This does not seem good enough for a school with the traditions of

the CMS, although the Americans presumably knew the situation be fore they sent their students there, What the students—who are st uck there for several years whether they like it or not—think a hout it all, no one in Suva seems to know or care. The problem of accommodation and staff will probably right itself in time but meanwhile the students who are tostructlon are simply wasting time, Their social and recreational requirements are probably taken care of by the School. But it they not, then these lads, many of whom have inadequate English, must be having a thin time. As far as the ordinary citizens of Suva are concerned they might just as well be living on another planet.