MORE SCOPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 16, 20 January 1936, Page 10

MORE SCOPE

ADVANTAGES IN SYDNEY

UNIVERSITIES COMPARED

The opinion that the greater scope in Sydney gave New South Wales students an advantage over those in New Zealand, was expressed by Professor H. B. Kirk, who occupies the Chair of Biology at Canterbury College, Christchurch, after a holiday visit to Sydney, where he investigated educational matters at Sydney University. Professor Kirk returned to New Zealand by tha Makura today.

"University matters in Sydney make one envious," Professor Kirk said when interviewed. Sydney University had three thousand students and a staff of professors about equal to the staffs, of all the New Zealand colleges. Tlv: Sydney University also had the advantage of more liberal endowments and better grants from the Government than the New Zealand colleges. There was a big medical school at Sydney, a veterinarian school, and highly-special-ised schools of commerce and law. He considered that education there should be more exact than in New Zealand, and that more specialised lines could be followed. The aptitude of the students was similar to that shown in New Zealand. "Students are much the same the world over." he said.

"I think the attitude of the general public in Australia towards university education is better than here," the professor said. "The public in general takes more interest." Although we have had endowments from wealthy men. they have had much larger endowments in Australia."

Speaking of the teaching of biology at Sydney. Professor Kirk said that there were chairs for both bioiogy and botany, and also lecturers lr. those subjects. The Australian students had the advantage of living in a _ larger community where it was possible to giv3 greater attention to individual subjects.