MAORI STUDENTS

Te Ao Hou, May 1957, Page 27

MAORI STUDENTS The students who reside for a certain period of years in order to further their education, are a section of our urban population whom I firmly believe merit the wholehearted support and admiration of all the Maoris at large. They are young, eager and ambitious, but many also are immature and impecunious. They are the group who I feel meet with the widest range of conflicts of any Maori group resident in the city. Theirs is a very difficult lot. Although problems of accommodation are not nearly as acute as they used to be, it is still a problem for impoverished students whether they be Maori or pakeha. In the body of Maori Students in Wellington we must include (1) Training College Students, (2) Dental Nurses, (3) Student Nurses, (4) Trade trainees, (5) University students. While difficulties which confront this group are many and varied, the biggest problem is that of adjustment. There has been a large measure of success amongst those who fall into the first four categories, but with those attending University, results are not so good. University students are left more to themselves and are required to organise themselves much more than the others, and from observations it seems that their great cause of difficulty is the problem of organisation of the personal life and the budgeting of individual time. Coming as they do from either the quiet of the country or from the ordered ways of a disciplined institutional life, such as is found in our secondary schools, like Te Aute College and other places, it would seem that once they hit the lights of city life their equilibrium becomes upset and they need Training College students spend a good deal of their time in the college library. Here are (from left to right): Marjorie Glover and Rawinia Te Hau. (PHOTO: JOHN FUN)

Above: The Latter Day Saints chapel Porirua is attended by most of the Maori the Porirua settlement. Community dancin a church activity. (PHOTO: JOHN FUN) Above: Children are given religious education at the Latter Day Saints chapel at Porirua. (PHOTO: JOHN FUN) Mr Riri Harris, of Ngati Raukawa, is the head pharmacist in one of the city's principal chemists' shops. He is a member of the Pharmaceutical Society, a qualification obtained after four years of part-time study with the Pharmacy College in Wellington. There are very few Maori pharmacy graduates, another recent one being Mr Hiki Heke who qualified in Taumarunui. (NPS PHOTOGRAPH)

One Wellington girl with a fascinating and responsible job is Miss Pamela Ormsby, shorthand-typist in the office of the Hon. E. H. Halstead, Minister of Industries and Commerce. a great deal of time to settle in and become accustomed to the requirements of life in town. Therefore, I would think that the average Maori student entering University requires at least one year before he can even begin successfully to tackle his course—for most Maoris full-time attendance should be aimed at: there are too many adjustment difficulties for him to face in the city which preclude his chances of success on a part-time basis. On the other hand, at the Training College, the Dental Clinic, Trade Training Centres and the Hospital, there is a continuance of a degree of institutional discipline and supervision and seldom do those places produce failures amongst Maori students. It might be argued, that the University failures are due to the fact that the course is much stiffer than the others. Yet, judging from the students' educational background. I think that their adjustment difficulties are far more important than any intellectual ones. Despite these difficulties we can find today a greater number of Maoris in all walks of life who sport a University degree than was the case 10–15 years ago, but a lot needs to be done to make all our people a little more education conscious.