Scholarships

More Islands Scholarships Are Need

New Zealand's Officer for Isla Education, in Wellington, put a point of view.

By F. R. J. Davies

Towards the end of the

years I had the responsibility taking on a scheme to send students each year from one

the Pacific Territories for sch

ing in New Zealand.

MY comments on this pra< were sufficiently strong tc least postpone the schem< knew all the clap-trap that absorbs from one’s reading—all we used to learn about b educated in one’s own environrr As one woman said to me at time, “What a wicked thing to these young children from t homes and place them in a for environment”.

I took over the scholarship gramme in 1948, quite prepare) terminate it as soon as possible, instead it has increased in strei annually, and it has now reach' stage where we should be abl assess its value. This is someti in the way of an assessment.

The idea of NZ scholarships Pacific students goes back s years. In 1945, the then New land Prime Minister paid a vis: the Pacific Islands, which rest! in the survey of education Id Commission —headed by the Zealand Director of Education.

He recommended the awart scholarships as a sh o r t-t * measure, until the Islands territ could establish suitable secon schools. A scholarship scheme been proposed by the Samoan c; shortly before the arrival of Commission there.

High Cost

Scholarships turned out to b important spearhead on the a; of education, and from 1945 toi about 14 students have been brc to New Zealand from the Pi' each year—and more than a qui of a million pounds spent oir scheme.

Financially the cost is high-j not really high in comparison the construction of second; schools to serve hundreds of t islands. It is necessary to children, in any case, long dish; and to take them away from

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homes to put them into boarding schools.

It is necessary also to expatriate teaching staff to man these schools.

To attract these staffs, it is neces sary to pay much higher salaries than in their homeland, and so the

cost per student is much higher in the tropics than is usually antici pated. Buildings cost more than in a developed country but there is a saving on the upkeep of the hostel.

Usually food is cheaper, because the diet is geared to local production.

But when capital costs and in terest and maintenance are consid ered, overseas scholarships are probably cheaper than local pro vision for higher education —or at least they would be if parents had to contribute as much to their children’s upkeep as they do when at home.

"Scepticism"

Unfortunately, no one has yet dis covered a practical way of extract ing a proportion of the cost of overseas scholarships from Islands parents who are always more than content to let the Government bear the whole cost.

After a period of scepticism I was compelled to change my attitude to scholarships and came to realise that the progress made by students in New Zealand was incomparably greater than that of students in their own country. In areas where students never use English outside the schoolroom, it is well-nigh im possible to ever teach students to think in English. In the New Zea land environment, they soon learn to talk fluently and to think in English.

It also became obvious after a while that the mingling of scholar ship students with European chil dren in New Zealand did much to break down any feelings of racial prejudice. New Zealanders are usually quick to befriend strangers of whatever race or colour. In fact, their fault usually tends towards lionising their visitors. There is still

thing very important about a 0 coming from distant shores, nularly if the New Zealander 3ever been out of New Zealand, iit is that most students forget lire brown or of a different race most of them do return home eevery trace of racial prejudice ved The New Zealander, too, eearnt that Islands people can tery fine people and so these ambassadors are bringing Jit to both countries, uolarship students have shown \ they can compete quite well 1 New Zealanders. The majority passed their examinations. 8 has been a first-class pass 5e Master of Arts degree; three elor of Arts degrees; three have faed as medical doctors and are a large number of mts at various stages of pro onal and of trade training.

Disadvantages

;, lately, I have been wonder- Libout all this. I have reached Jtage where I can see so many ntages and disadvantages that mk that some more research is red. sese are some of the problems: me of those who have returned not applied their knowledge conscientiously as one would ex- Possibly, the most successful been the trained teachers and is probably due to a more in ve and longer course of train ademically, in New Zealand no i*,ould complain. They have been [people, respected and liked in cases. It is, therefore, strange on their return many seem to ge. ist, although they have suc ;d academically, tests tend to that only a few are outstand mtellectually—the extra success ;obably due to the drive exerted heir pride and the additional is that they, born of patience, prepared to devote. They are the academically that can be found, iin English at least their IQ’s usually only average. ►ere does seem to be a close re nship between intelligence and :tual behaviour, for even those through hard work secure :.fications, do not necessarily pay iends on return.

What Solution? udents are allowed to return to • homes for a holiday every 3 years. On their return to New and most show signs of being it. Usually, on their arrival in islands the parents and relatives so proud of them that they age feasts and visits to such an it that it takes the strongest lied student to resist the tempta to regard himself as something Itle super-human, hat then is the solution? Do we more scholarships or less?

It is true that they say that to create an intelligentsia is to raise a section of the community that is out of touch with its own people.

Although they might adopt demo cratic principles, the ordinary people are so far behind, they will not trust the intelligentsia.

But the world, I think, is too small a place now to shirk the task of helping the under-developed peoples.

Thus I think the fault lies not in sending scholarship students abroad but in sending too few of them.

Having gone so far to raise the level of a few we must speed up the process. We must hasten to bridge the gap before a few educated people become isolated from their own people.

The problem then is how to spread quickly the benefits the scholarship students have received so there will be a sharing of ideas among every body.