[Rewi Alley, school opened in China].

Courtney Archer speaks about the opening of the Shandan Bailie School for Agriculture and Forestry, in China. It is the culmination of sixty years' work in that country by New Zealander Rewi Alley.

The new school has been funded by donations from all over the world, and will open this week [April 1987].

The school was part of a project that began in the 1940s, and was originally built to spearhead the "Gung Ho Industrial Cooperative Movement", providing technical education programmes. The school was destroyed by an earthquake in 1953 - since then it has been Rewi Alley's dream to see the school rebuilt.

New Zealander Courtney Archer worked at the school in its early days, but now lives in Rangiora. He speaks about the original school, and the impact it had on the local people in the years after the Second World War.

Rewi Alley has lived in China for 60 years, now in Beijing. He comments on the original and new schools, and also mentions his poor health which now prevents him from travelling.