'Important trade in education’

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33158, 23 February 1973, Page 8

'Important trade in education’

New Zealand’s contribution to the education of overseas students was paying considerable dividends in the students’ home countries, the professor of plant science at Lincoln College (Professor R. H. M. Langer) said yesterday.

*■ Professor Langer was speaking on his return from the University of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpa. where he has been acting as external examiner for a short time. “It was clearly evident from the two dozen former students that I was able to visit in Malaysia that the training which they have received in New Zealand has

been of invaluable assistance to their country. They are all in important positions, where they can put their practical training to good use for their own people,” he said.

To those educationists in New Zealand who were against the extension of numbers of overseas students in the country. Professor Langer said that the broader experience of life which overseas students were able to acquire while studying in New Zealand was of invaluable assistance to the development of a closer SouthEast Asian understanding. ”1 wouldn’t like to see any reduction in the number of overseas students that we are able to train. It is not strictly true to say that overseas students are restricting the number of places available to New Zealand students in our university.”