Thirty New Overseas Students At Lincoln

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29770, 13 March 1962, Page 18

Thirty New Overseas Students At Lincoln

With 30 new students from overseas countries enrolled the Lincoln College campus looks more like an international student conference than an agricultural college. Notable among the pewcomers are four students from newly-independent Tanganyika. These men are the first to come to New Zealand under the Special Commonwealth Aid to Africa Plan and will take the diploma in agriculture course as a preparation for their future work as field officers in the extension service of the Tanganyika Department of Agriculture. As part of the diploma course the students will work for six months on New Zealand farms. Mr D. B. McSweeney, lecturer in rural education and overseas students counsellor at the eollege, said he would be very pleased to hear from any farmers who would be willing to give the overseas students jobs on their farms during the vacation periods. At the end of the year, he said, almost all the overseas students would be looking for places on farms.

Women Students

The only two women students in this year’s degree one class come from Indonesia. They have already spent three months at Victoria University's English Language Institution. They intend taking a degree in horticulture.

An interesting development of the Colombo Plan programme is the enrolment of two students from Sarawak. Several years ago, as high school boys, they were taught by Mr G. G. Clark, now of Cashmere High School, who was serving as a teacher in Sarawak under the Colombo Plan. The opening last year of the New Zealand-sponsored faculty of agriculture at Kuala Lumpur has provided Malaya with its own univer-sity-level facilities for the teaching of agriculture. However, the stream of Malayan students coming to the college seems likely to continue for some time. This year there are four Malayan students in degree one, three coming as private students one under a Malayan federal scholarship. West Africa will be represented at the college for the first time by a Nigerian teacher of biology. This student, like the Tanganyikans, is the holder of a S.C.A.A.P. bursary. The popularity of horticultural courses for overseas students is a reflection of intensive fanning systems of the densely-populated areas of South-east Asia and the Pacific. One of the horticulture diploma students who has just arrived at the college comes from one of the most isolated homes in the world—Penrhyn Island—an atoll of 2000 acres about 700 miles from Rarotonga and 1500 miles from Western Samoa. Another student from the Cook Islands is also taking the diploma. Both

students are holders of Union Steamship Company scholarships. Another ‘'first” at the college is a student from Hong Kong, who is also taking the horticulture diploma. Higher Studies

Overseas students enrolled for courses of higher studies in agriculture include a Nepalese, who will take a master’s degree in horticulture. and two Chilean students, who are spending three months at the college as part of their fifth and final year of an agricultural degree at a university in Santiago. Masters’ degrees are also being taken by two students from Malaya and one from Pakistan. A Japanese graduate in agriculture employed by the National Institute of Agricultural Scientists is also working at the college. He is undertaking a research project in plant science. Including students who arrived five years ago and who are now working on masters’ degrees, there are now students from 17 different overseas countries at the college. These include Fiji, Scotland. Ireland, England, Nigeria. Tanganyika. Indonesia. Pakistan. Madeira. Cook Islands. Australia, Canada, South Africa, Nepal, Malaya, Japan. Chile.