TEACHERS FOR SARAWAK

Press, Volume C, Issue 29509, 10 May 1961, Page 6

TEACHERS FOR SARAWAK

Team Of Three From N.Z.

(IV.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 9. New Zealand will send a team of three New Zealand school teachers to Sarawak under the Colombo Plan to help the Sarawak education authorities with their secondary school curriculum. The leader of the team, Mr W, I. Shrimpton, who was formerly headmaster of Wairarapa College, has arrived in Sarawak, and will be joined by the other two members who will leave New Zealand next week. They are Mr T. O. Fitzgibbon, english and social studies teacher at Spotswood College, New Plymouth, and Mr C. A. Neate, head of the mathematics and science department at Pukekohe High School. The Prime Minister (Mr I Holyoake) said today that' Sarawak faced the same 1 problems as many other ; small under - developed' countries. “While the great majority i of its people are engaged ini agriculture and its economy j relies very largely on agri.] cultural production and thej export of primary products.] the existing school curricu-] lum is designed more to turn' out white collar workers than \ people with a practical bent and with at least the begin-] nings of a scientific approach■ to the ordinary problems of existence,” he said. “The task of our team is to work out a form of education to fit the needs of the mass , of the people who work on] the land while also providing a sufficient academic; grounding for the comparatively small number of Sarawak pupils who go on to' university and other places] of higher learning.”