17 February 2000 Second Chemistry Prodigy Starts His Study – and they keep getting younger!

Is it in the air or the water? What's the formula? Could Christchurch become the chemistry capital of New Zealand?

Topping a 13-year-old starting Chemistry studies at Canterbury University this year is Lincoln University which has a 12-year-old doing the same subject. What's more, he's moved up to it from an A-plus pass in Computing last year when he started his university studies at the tender age of 11, and he has just completed a second-year Computing paper through Lincoln University's Summer School.

Ray Hidayat, in other respects a 4th former at Papanui High School, is studying Chemistry through Lincoln University's Regional Education Programme and he's part of a ‘chemistry nest’ of science extension students based on Shirley Boys' High School.

In addition to his university-level Chemistry, Ray is doing 5th form Physics and Accounting at school. Parents Rudy and Rini Hidayat are totally supportive of their son's efforts and Rudy himself is a doctoral science graduate of Lincoln.

Ray is unfazed by the attention his work attracts – he just wants to get on with it.

"My mates say 'Wow, I can't believe it', but I just want to get on with things and build up the points towards a degree," he says.

The Director of Lincoln University's Regional Education Programme, Dr Lynette Hardie Wills, says there appears to be a science renaissance in Canterbury at the moment and this augurs well for the development of info-technology and associated manufacturing activities in Canterbury.

"However, Lincoln is concerned that at the moment it is only boys who are leading the way in chemistry. Perhaps girls are falling behind in the hard sciences. We cannot allow a gender gap of this sort at the start of the new millennium. In our Regional Education Programme in Canterbury there are only boys registered for Chemistry and no girls. Lincoln wants to rectify the situation.

"Beyond Canterbury there is a mixed gender Chemistry nest in Invercargill where Lincoln has its Regional Education Programme activities based on Southland Girls' High School."

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand