BACK FROM NOUMEA

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30026, 10 January 1963, Page 8

BACK FROM NOUMEA

Study Party Home

All but one of the 24 language students who have spent since December 14 in New Caledonia are now back in New Zealand. The last, one of the 13 students from Victoria University, Wellington, is waiting for an airliner seat to Auckland. The rest, including 11 from the University of Canterbury, have ended the third in a series of visits to New Caledonia where they studied language and literature at the Lycee La Perouse of Noumea.

One of the leaders of this summer’s visit was Mr D. L. Drysdale, a modem languages master at Christ’s College. “The three weeks were busy, interesting and often exciting,” he reported yesterday.

All the lectures at the lycee were in French, “In this and other situations the party’s ability to speak and understand French was often put to severe tests. But such experience was, of course, the primary aim of the visit. The students’ ability with the language improved immensely.”

Almost all the party were flrst-year students. They visited most parts of Noumea and other places on the island, inspected the Noumea nickel foundry and a hydroelectric plant “We had a four-day trip to the spectacularly beautiful east coast of the island,” said Mr Drysdale.

The cost of the venture to each student was £4O for the return air fare and about £5O for board expenses. They lived at the lycee hostels and had the assistance and advice of the local educational authorities and teachers throughout their stay. Although Noumea is a ®P a JI5 ity ’ a population of 60,000, the students were able to meet many residents socially and experience the Christmas and New Year festivals conducted according to traditions different from their own generally English ana Protestant ones. Noumea offered them all the refinements of French cuisine; also Chinese cooking and such local dishes as Tahitian salad of raw fish soaked in lemon juice. They met many of the villagers in more remote parts of the island and noted the absence of any colour bar in the French colony. “There Is no colour bar in education,” said Mr Drysdale, “and all nationalities get employment at all levels.”