TEACHER'S CAREER
APPOINTMENT IN ERITREA NEW ZEALANDER'S STORY Few women can boast such an adventurous career in education as a New Zealand woman, Miss Decima Meek, M.8.E., 8.A., who has sent word from London to relatives in the Dominion that she is to take up a post on the educational staff of the British Army of Occupation in the former Italian colony of Eritrea. She was due to leave London on January 4. For her distinguished educational work as assistant director of the British Institute in Egypt and for the part she played in organising educational and recreational activities at Montgomery House, Miss Meek was awarded the M.B.E. in 1944. When the Egyptian Nationalist movement became violently antiBritish, Miss Meek, along with other members of the staff of the British Institute in Egypt, had to leave that country. For some months she has been in England, but disappointed in her attempt to secure a passage to New Zealand, has accepted this War Office appointment. Since April, 1941, when British, Indian and Free French troops stormed the heights of Kerch and entered Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, a British army of occupation has governed Italy's oldest colony in Africa. According to international law the British Military Administration was not obliged to undertake the task of educating the Eritreans, but it has tackled the job, and it has been assisted by the warmest cooperation and self-sacrificing help of both the native Eritreans and the Italian people of the country.
Started From Scratch
Under Italian rule there were very few schools, and after the effects of fighting the Education Department set up by the army in 1942 had virtually to start from scratch. By January, 1943, the army's education staff had got together 30 teachers, and it was able to open 24 schools.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BPB19470207.2.33
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Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 91, 7 February 1947, Page 5
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300TEACHER'S CAREER Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 91, 7 February 1947, Page 5
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