‘Investment’ in overseas students

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 6

‘Investment’ in overseas students

Overseas students are New Zealand’s best investment in its future economic, cultural and diplomatic relations with its Asian and Pacific neighbours, according to Professor J. D. Stewart, principal of Lincoln College. Professor Stewart and Mrs Stewart have just returned from a tour of Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines where they visited agricultural projects and !educational institutions. He told the Lincoln College Council yesterday that he and Mrs Stewart met forImer students rf the college on their travels. Many of them were not personally particularly well known to him, but they all showed “extraordinary loyalty not only to Lincoln College but to New Zealand.” These students had quickly reached positions of influence in their countries, largely because of the education they received in New Zealand, Professor Stewart said.

“If we believe, as 1 do, that the most important region in our longer-term future is the Pacific rim, including South East Asia, we should recognise that one of the most effective ways of cultivating it is through our education system. “We should be relatively open in our attitude to students from the region, recognising that the marginal costs are low and the potential benefits — diplomatic, cultural, and economic — are very high,” he said.

Professor Stewart said the combined effect of recent measures introduced by the Government .— that no more than 40 per cent of students should be from any one country, the Latos (language achievement test jt or over-

seas students) test, and the $l5OO fee imposed on foreign students — had given the impression that New Zealand was making a “concerted” effort to keep out foreign students. This view was probably not justified, but it was not encouraging to students in the area, he said. In Singapore he was told that the $l5OO fee was not such a bad hurdle, but that something should be done about the Latos test.

The cost of educating overseas students was “marginal” compared with the potential benefits, Professor Stewart said. At Lincoln College, 8 per cent of the students were foreign. If they were not there, the savings to the college would certainly not be anything like 8 per cent. The foreign students at Lincoln came from 31 different countries, he said.