MEDICAL SCHOOL AT DUNEDIN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 143, 3 April 1950, Page 2

MEDICAL SCHOOL AT DUNEDIN

GRANTING OF NEW, BURSARIES STATEMENT BY CLASS REPRESENTATIVE . j ■■ • . . . 1 , V (P.A.) DUNEDIN, April 2. An emphatic denial that he had said, or had been reported as saying, that the 16 bursaries granted to second-year medical students at the Otago Medical School were renewed was made to-night by Mr G. K. McKenzie, class representative on the Otago Medical Students’ Association. He was replying to a statement by the Minister of Health (Mr J. T. Watts).. Mr Watts had said, according to a Press Association message from Wellington, that someone in Dunedin had not correctly stated the position regarding medical bursaries and that the 16 bursaries had not been renewed, but were new bursaries granted for the first time this year. Explaining the method of entering«. the medical school, Mr McKenzie said that a student had first to obtain his intermediate examination. It was possible to sit for this examination at any university in New Zealand. No matter how long it took a student to obtain his intermediate, Mr McKenzie said, lie was still a second-year student when he first entered' the medical school 1 at Dunedin. Students-sat for their intermediate at the University of Otago. About March 10 of this year, Mr McKenzie said, 17 second-year students at the Otago Medical School * received advice that their applications for health bursaries had not , been granted. .The decision caused consternation among those students, because some of them could, not complete their course without the Government’s financial assistance. ' Interview with Mr Holland \ When the Prime Minister, (Mr Holland) visited Dunedin. recently, Mr McKenzie was granted a personal iff-' terview with him. He explained to Mr Holland that some of, the students could not carry on with their course bepause of financial difficulties, and the Prime Minister gave him an assurance that he would take ! up the cases personally. He said he would have them fully reconsidered. ,Of the 17 students who had applied in the first instance, Mr McKenzie said, two had decided that they could hot appeal on financial grounds and withdrew, and two other students were granted boarding bursaries by the Department of Education. The 13 remaining students made out new applications, emphasising the gravity, of their financial positions and those were sent to the Prime Minister’s secretary. In a letter recently received by Mr McKenzie, Mr Holland’s secretary said that the Prime Minister was pleased to forward the applications to the Minister of Health, who would submit them for reconsideration, by the special committee set up by him. Twelve of the students received advice by telegram last Friday that their applications had been reconsidered and that they had been granted bursaries. Mr McKenzie said that the bursaries which had been granted took the student through his complete course .provided he showed satisfactory progress.’ They were not bursaries which were renewed every year. Of the 13 students who had sent in new applications, only one had not received a reply. It was not known if he had been granted a bursary or not, but he was still awaiting advice. Three other students had applied for bursaries when the 13 original -students reapplied. That taade the number up to 16 and coincided with the Minister’s figure in the Press Association message.