An Ambitious Undertaking

To build up self-reliant societies operating on democratic lines is the broad policy of the New Zealand administration in the areas for which it is responsible. Essential to this process is education—first a broad-based system to teach an entire population to read and write, with higher education for a promising few; next, a fuller education for all who can profit by it. The first stage is an ambitious enough undertaking which has for years taxed resources of teachers and school buildings in the islands and accounts for a substantial part of the New Zealand contribution to development there—over £1,000,000 a year for the past five years.

The New Zealand scholarship scheme, providing higher education than can be had in the islands, has since 1945 been producing young people, qualified to high standards, who will help in self-development of the Polynesians as medical men and nurses, school teachers and engineers, administrators and tradesmen.

To date 206 scholarships have been awarded. As most of the pupils have been selected at primary school age to take the whole of their secondary and technical or university education in New Zealand, results are only beginning to accrue. Fifty-three students have returned to their islands and 153 are still in training in what is proving one of the most successful educational experiments ever made.