Malaysian students uncertain

Press, 15 November 1984, Page 5

Malaysian students uncertain

Confusion over the Government’s policy on foreign students has left more than 600 Malaysians uncertain of their educational future.

Hundreds of Malaysian students applied for admission to New Zealand State and private secondary schools on the expectation that the previous Government’s cost recovery scheme to sell education places in New Zealand would be put into effect this year. The scheme was not ratified because of the snap election in July. The New Zealand High Commission in Kuala Lumpur has told the Malaysian students that they will not be allowed to attend high school and tertiary institutions in New Zealand, and the students are having difficulty gaining readmission to the schools in Malaysia from which they had withdrawn.

At a recent meeting of the New Zealand Combined Educational Association in

Wellington, the Minister of Education, Mr Marshall, said that confusion over the v National Government’s scheme had “opened the floodgates for State and private high schools here.’’ The Director-General of Education, Mr William Renwick, said that the Government’s policy was that because the students could not be guaranteed a tertiary education, it would be misleading for them to have a secondary one here. The president of the Malaysian Students’ Association in Christchurch, Mr Tay Hock Siew, said that things were “very messy.” “Government decisions are made but we are not told of them,” Mr Siew said. “I only hope things are cleared up as soon as possible.”

It was reported that because of the confusion, New Zealand’s image among prospective Malaysian students had taken a battering.