ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
In a touching display of Australian values, a student who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend the needlessly exclusive and prestigious Ladies College within The South Betoota Polytechnic School has thanked an international student for making her education possible.
Jennifer Pearson, a 19-year-old Windorah native, was awarded the Peter Beattie Scholarship For Academic Excellence at the start of the year.
Without it, Pearson says she wouldn’t have been able to afford to attend the Channel Country’s highest-ranked tertiary institute.
So this afternoon around 3, our reporter joined Jennifer on campus and watched on as she tapped Mary-Beth Guo on the shoulder and gave her a warm hug before shaking her hand firmly.
“Thank you for paying for my education. You’re helping in more ways than you could imagine!”
Mary-Beth smiled and looked around the room.
“I know you can’t understand a word I’m saying, I just want to
One more hug later, the exchange was over
Never the less, South Betoota Polytechnic Vice-Chancellor, Professor Oscar Tindal, says programmes and scholarships like the Peter Beattie are made possible by students like Ms Guo.
Speaking exclusively to The Advocate this afternoon, Tindal said that while outstanding students like young Jennifer are always a benefit to institutions like South Betoota Polytechnic, he doesn’t want to teach young people that there are no free lunches in this world.
“We can turn a $14k Bachelor of Arts into a $50k Bachelor of International Communications with just a few keystrokes,” he said.
“International students makes the wheels go round here and they also make it possible to give poor people an education. The type of people who, despite being just as intelligent and capable as other people, won’t be able to achieve their potential just because they lack the same opportunity and privilege as other people,”
“So yeah. Complain all you want. They’re doing more good than harm.”
More to come.
