N.Z. STUDENT AT OXFORD

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29071, 7 December 1959, Page 11

N.Z. STUDENT AT OXFORD

Mr M. Sanderson Conditions at _ Oxford and Cambridge were 'quite different from those at other British universities, particularly in the approach to education, said a New Zealander who, after three years’ study at Oxford, returned to Christchurch last week. He is Mr Martin Sanderson, of Templeton, who, in 1956, won a scholarship of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers, England, worth £6OO a year for three years, and who graduated from the honour school of English language and literature with second-class honours. At Oxford, he was in Keble and Christ's Colleges, where, he said, there was a much higher proportion of staff to students than at other British universities.

A big difference he found, compared with New Zealand university life, was the closer dependence by the student on one or two tutors “who have you under their private supervision. There, the attendance at lectures is not compulsory, and there is no impression of being forced into anything," he said. The highlight of his time in Britain was when he received an invitation, with about half a

dozen others, to be the Queen Mother’s guest at a State Opening of Parliament. Mr Sanderson said he had been given a temporary post as assistant lecturer in English at the University of Canterbury for the next two terms. After that he intended to return to England, to go to Cambridge, where he hoped to read for theology, which would take another two years. Two years later, if ordained, he would work as a curate and then finally return to New Zealand.