Fijian Students In Auckland

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30050, 7 February 1963, Page 14

Fijian Students In Auckland

The protest by Students International at Auckland University against the restriction of bursary assistance to Fijian students deserves to succeed. Although the period of assisted study for the Fijians is apparently decided by the Fijian Government, it will be widely felt, both in New Zealand and elsewhere in the Pacific, that the New Zealand Government or the university authorities could help promising Fijian students to acquire qualifications more advanced than the basic allowance provided from their homeland will permit. Having made available expensive educational facilities (which are subsidised by the New Zealand taxpayer), the New Zealand authorities could well ponder the folly of letting island students return home inadequately equipped to advance the welfare of their people—a task in which New Zealand, as a Pacific Power, has a direct responsibility. Any help provided by New Zealand would be an admirable investment in racial and international goodwill. Recently interest in the educational requirements of the Pacific islands has been increased as a result of the first course held in New Zealand to prepare teachers for work there. The Dominion can take pride in the fact that about 200 New Zealanders already hold teaching appointments in the islands. Whether it

would be better to foster the establishment of a South Pacific university (as Professor K. B. Cumberland, of Auckland, advocates) or to give more islanders a university education in New Zealand has become a matter of controversy. The Minister of Island Territories (Mr Gotz) on January 25 forthrightly condemned any move towards founding a Pacific islands university, and supported the higher education of islanders m New Zealand. Recently, also, doubts have been raised in New Zealand about the wisdom with which the Dominion’s financial and technical assistance to

underdeveloped countries is being applied. Although it may be attributable to the shortsightedness or unreasonableness of the Fijian Government, the plight of the Fijian students in Auckland could damage New Zealand’s own reputation as a friend of the Pacific islanders. Education is an obvious key to progress everywhere; economically, New Zealand stands to benefit if it can afford to send fewer of its own professional men and women to underdeveloped countries and to leave to New Zealand - trained islanders duties that otherwise might fall to European graduates. It is important that the Dominion’s overseas aid policies should be flexible enough to care for needs like those of the Fijian students.