The Ota Scholarship was made possible initially by the generous gift of Mr T Ota on the occasion of his retirement as Headmaster of our Japanese sister school in Tokyo, Jissen Gakuen Junior and Senior High School.
Mr Ota’s gift was to enable students from Marlborough Boys' College and Marlborough Girls’ College to visit Jissen Gakuen each year.
The scholarship is now also supported from resources generated by the annual Jissen Gakuen one-week exchange to NZ. It was his hope that this would deepen the friendship between Jissen Gakuen and Marlborough Boys' College and Marlborough Girls’ College.
The scholarship is available to MBC Year 9 and 10 junior students. be an opportunity to travel again in the future.
OTA SCHOLARSHIP 2019-20
MBC International had a positive start in 2020 with the OTA Scholarship trip to our sister school, Jissen Gakuen in Tokyo Japan for 10 days, which was an amazing experience.
Liam Keegan and Patrick Milliken represented the Boys’ College and Fiona Mark had the honour of accompanying the boys and the two OTA scholar recipients from MGC.
The students experienced a very different way of life compared to New Zealand. The days were packed full at school, immersing themselves in Japanese culture, and sight-seeing. The MBC and MGC students represented the Colleges admirably.
The Jissen Gakuen staff are very generous with their time, effort to please and gift giving. The programmes set out for the students include whole class involvement. Most of the classes are planned to help the Jissen Gakuen students with their English. The Japanese students were curious and very interested in New Zealand. JG students from their academic discipline and school expectations. No cell phones are allowed in class or used at the campus during school hours.
The students make life-long friends with their Japanese host family. The MBC and MGC students were in awe of Jissen Gakuen, the people, the culture and the country. They were so pleased and grateful to have the opportunity to be immersed in such a different environment, they would all like to return to Japan in the future.
This Scholarship experience is invaluable to learn about how different other cultures can be and the importance to support other International students while attending MBC.
There have been many years of exchanges, and we are very disappointed to be unable to offer the OTA Scholarship to Marlborough Boys’ College students in 2020 and 2021. Hopefully there may be an opportunity to travel again in the future.