Accommodation Needed For Foreign Students

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 15

Accommodation Needed For Foreign Students

Accommodation is still urgently needed for the 20 new students from Asia and Africa who will arrive in Christchurch next week under the Colombo Plan and the Commonwealth Aid to Africa Plan. So far about 25 offers have been received but most are rooms, caravans, or board a long way out of the city. Wanted, are homes close to the University of Canterbury’s city. or Dam sites where new arrivals from overseas will be taken into the family circle, helped to settle down in a new country. and encouraged in their new activities. Few offers have come from the central area, and none from the north-west, where homes are particularly wanted for the many engineering students. An officer of the External Affairs Department, Wellington, who is in Christchurch to help find board, said every one of these students could be highly recommended. There were two men from Tanganyika who had spent a year in New Zealand high

schools, two from Singapore, 10 from Malaya (half doing engineering and half arts degrees), two girls and three men from Vietnam, and one man from Thailand, Those from countries without European backgrounds have been at the Institute of English Studies in Wellington since November to receive extra language , and acclimatisation studies. In Equal Terms The rest, the officer said, could compete on equal terms. One Malayan was thirteenth for New Zealand on the university scholarship list. The Thai, the oldest of the party at 32, had a fascinating career. He had been a lieutenant in the Royal Thai Navy, had exchange service in the United States and Formosa. and represented his country in a delegation for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11. A qualified naval engineer, he was now taking up chemical engineering. Offers of accommodation are being received in business hours at telephone 70-165 or at the Christchurch office of the External Affairs Department. The department has 10 officers throughout New Zealand seconded to help the 600 students now in New Zea--land under these aid plans They report that, without exception, these students are industrious and keen to oblige. After the initial year of settling in, many are quite happy to find fla'ts or rooms of their own. But at the outset, guidance is needed. The University of Canterbury Students’ Association and its International Club operates a “brothers and sisters” scheme by which local students take these newcomers under their wing and guide them about commuting, currency, shopping, enrolling, and other matters.