Money was valuable but the real gift was learning

SAMOA COLLEGE : “The Money was valuable enough, but the real gift was that of learning and education.”

Source: SCOPA NZ

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MP Le’aufa’amulia with husband and son, and SCOPA NZ President Sooalo and Vice President Mavaega.

The upcoming 60th anniversary celebration in Auckland on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st December will again mark the special relationship between New Zealand and Samoa with the establishment of SAMOA COLLEGE.

Samoa College Old Pupils Association (SCOPA) in New Zealand have invited Labour MP Su’a Viliamu Sio, National MP Peseta Sam Lotu I’iga and New Zealand First MP Lea’ufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor to represent the New Zealand Government. Invited to represent the Samoa Government is Samoa Consul General Faolotoi Reupena Pogi.

In the 2003 article ‘Paying Homage to 50 Years of Service to Samoa by Afamasaga Fa’amatala Toleafoa a former Samoa diplomat and Samoa College old boy, Afamasaga wrote, “....the story of Samoa College, is in many respects, also the story of Samoa itself, before and since independence.”

“In the late 1940s and early 1950s, it was clear that Samoa needed educated men and women to manage its own affairs as an independent nation, which it was aspiring to be.”

“When officially opening Samoa College on 2nd October 1953, Dr Beeby the then NZ Minister of Education said, 'It need scarcely be said that the opening of Samoa College marks the beginning of a new era for Samoa, and that hopes for effective self rule will depend largely on the success of this school.”

“And so the new school was conceived and born... The gold plated plaque mounted outside the principal's office at the school says that this was 'a gift from the people of New Zealand to the people of Samoa' It was a generous gift indeed, and came mainly by way of eighty thousand pounds sterling from the profits of the then NZ Reparations Estates, former German plantations given to NZ as reparations after the First World War.”

“The money was valuable enough, but the real gift was that of learning and education.”

ENDS

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