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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 6. 4th April 1973

School Leavers Picnic?

School Leavers Picnic?

A fair number of volunteers leaving New Zealand every year are school leavers. These kids, having lived with their parents all their lives, and with no qualifications or experience (apart from U.E. and fluency in English) are expected to go out to the islands to teach. History has proven that for a long time the Samoans like other Polynesians have been the "problem", the target for study by European students. And now sending these school kids to Samoa as teachers implies that members of V.S.A. view the Samoan way of life as inferior and its standards as incorrect and in need of adjustment.

Furthermore, as stated earlier, there are already enough Samoans with good secondary education who are finding it difficult to get jobs. The continual arrival of these school-leaver volunteers to teach Form II & III General Science, Geography and Social Studies means the continual denial of jobs to the capable Samoans.

The volunteers have argued that the scheme is regarded as a type of ambassadorial system. Volunteers not only offer some of their knowledge to the Samoans but learn from them certain values which could be brought back to New Zealand. The irony of the argument is that there are already more than 20,000 Samoans living in N.Z. and it could hardly be said that there is a rising interest in Samoan values among New Zealanders.