GONE TO ENGLAND TO STUDY

Te Ao Hou, December 1957, Page 63

GONE TO ENGLAND TO STUDY Wide publicity was given to the departure of Mr C. M. BENNETT, Controller of Maori Welfare, to Exeter College, Oxford, last August, where he is studying for two years with the aim of obtaining a Doctorate of Philosophy. The subject of Mr Bennett's study, which was sponsored by the Ngarimu Scholarship Fund, will be to discover how other races are tackling acculturation and integration problems like those which face the Maori people. His research will take the form of a comparative study embracing, in addition to the Maori, one or two other progressive and somewhat similarly situated races. Also at Exeter College, Oxford, studying for a B.Litt. and residential qualifications for a Doctorate, is Mr IAN HUGH KAWHARU who earlier this year passed a B.A. degree in anthropology at Cambridge with second class honours. His subject is the role of the growth of economic individualism (especially with respect to land) in promoting shifts in social organisation among communities of the type of the Maori people. Mr SELWYN TE NGAREATUA WILSON has gone to England to study at the Slade School of Fine Arts. He was an Art Specialist with the Education Department and his paintings are thought very promising by the experts. Miss ESTHER RATA KERR has worked as a radiographer in the X-ray Department of Auckland Hospital and left to get further training, in hospitals in England to qualify ultimately for the degree of Fellow of the Society of Radiographers. It is a degree no Maori has previously held. When Miss Kerr comes back, she hopes to resume her work in Auckland hospital. All these three younger students were given a grant by the Sir Apirana Ngata Memorial Scholarship Fund Board to help carry on their studies. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ A new Maori hostel is to be built on an elevated site near Parnell Rise, Auckland. Town Planning authorities have indicated that in the next five to ten years at least part, if not all, of the present site at the foot of Parnell Road, will have to be taken over to fit in with the town planning scheme for the area. The new hostel will accommodate 35 to 40 people, and should meet a long-felt need. A feature of it will be the facilities for Maori University students. It would have a library-study room where students can work in a quiet atmosphere.