EDUCATION IN FIJI

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1928, Page 2

EDUCATION IN FIJI

THIS NEW DIRECTOR. WELLINGTON, Jan. 5. A tangible desire to improve the educational facilities of Fiji was shown by Dir .1. Cnughley immediately he assumed his duties as Director of Education there. Ho has established n special annual competition for his own prize for English language, and has also expressed himself in favour of assisting the education of the Indian community and uniting the ditferent races into one big move lorwa rd.

The first public duty of Dir Caughlev was to attend the prize-giving of the Boys’ and Girls’ Grammar Schools of Suva', and it was at this function that he impressed upon a big assembly that education, beyond enabling us to earn a living, mostly suitably fulfilled its purpose when it enabled us to live worthily the life thus earned. Perhaps the best test of a true education is the way in which they spent their leisure. and in the effect their lives had on their homes and in social life. Ho was (irmly of opinion t-liat the study of the mother tongue and ot English literature was one of the best means to forward these- ends. The educational needs of the Indian people wore placed before DTi Caughley immediately upon his arrival, and in bidding him welcome, the various Indian bodies suggested that a secondary school he established in Suva and run on lines similar to the Boys’ Grammar School with a primary department attached. Educational facilities for the women also were asked. Mr Cnughley said he felt he could promise that the authorities would, as far as is possible, he prepared to discuss with and receive suggestions from the people concerned, many of the proposals that might be provisionally promulgaetd by the Department.

With the proposal to give greater education facilities to women. Dir Cnughley was in agreement. “We English people have only in the last generation or two fully realised in actual administration, our perhaps previously hold more theoretical idea that no nation can rise above the level of tlie women, the mothers and the home-makers of the race.” he said. “It would he largely useless to educate hoys and girls for a wider, fuller, higher life unless the home conditions and surroundings were such as to aid and stinmato the uplifting purpose of education.”