Tuesday 17 February 2009

A Reaction from Locals

It has been awhile since my last entry, and I can say that we have been busy - which is true - but mostly I have been digesting a few strong reactions from the Dunedin "host population" to a comment I made recently in an international educational publication. The publication is "Language Travel" magazine, and our relationship with the team at this publication has been pretty close since their very first edition back in 1997. We were mentioned a few times when we were still solely an educational agent in Beijing, China, and we have participated in some of their surveys and country specific articles since our arrival in Dunedin, New Zealand. So I felt very comfortable with talking openly and honestly with them, (and still do now) about what we saw with regards to how international students were treated in Dunedin.

To make a long story short, the reaction from the local educational providers was extremely hostile to my observations and comments. My statement was (and still is) that it seems as if most of these providers treat their fee paying international students as something between a "cash register and a pet". I can say that this has been our observation as we listened to principals, international student coordinators and teachers describe their feelings or relationships towards these students, but the most disturbing thing is that it is the students themselves who feel this way. In perhaps many hundreds of conversations I have had over the last few years with high school, tertiary and even private language school students, it was they themselves who coined the term "cash register and pet"! I just borrowed the term, as I felt it was the most accurate and graphic description I had heard - and it came from the students themselves. Hard to argue fact or opinion?

Well as you can imagine, my publicized comments to "Language Travel" have not gone unnoticed, nor has it gained me many friends with in the education provider groups. So what should I do, as we are a language school ourselves?

Should I apologize?
I do not think so, as I feel the description is still an accurate account, however painful it might sound.

Should I try to arrange a meeting to smooth things over?
Perhaps not, as tempers are still pretty hot, and most locals do not want to discuss anything negative with an outsider, especially an Irish-American.

Should I try to change the thinking of the providers or the system itself from within?

Been there and done that (to coin another phrase)!

Since our arrival in Dunedin we have tried to assist and support many of the schools, most of whom declined our efforts, and are the schools most upset with us now. It is as if the whole education sector is living in a state of denial - they feel as if they need no help, they need not change and the system is just fine as is and is not broken (so why try to fix it)?

So what will we do?
We will continue our support of international students, foreign workers and new migrants in the areas of most importance to these groups of people - employment, education and housing.

We will continue to run our free employment search and Dunedin settlement workshops each month.

We will continue to have free English conversation clubs, twice each week, at Maverick School of Languages.

We will continue to teach the free NZQA Wananga Business classes (as we have done for almost 3 years) to all qualified students (NZ permanent residents and citizens).

And most of all we will continue to be the place where international students, foreign workers and new migrants can come to ask a question (in any language), to feel at home and to share a smile and a cuppa any time during the day!