FIJI
Introduction
ANNEXE.
REPORT FROM, THE PACIFIC AND THE FAR EAST
The illustrations I have taken from the experiences of my recent tour have been chosen to show to how great or less a degree territories I have visited are responding to the following education challenges.
That the expansion of education in quantity should be paralleled by a similar expansion in quality.
2.
That education should relate the past to the future, i.e. it should link tradition with progress.
3. That education should provide a medium for common intercourse between language groups in one territory and between people of neighbouring territories. The need of this was shown particularly in April this year when the Pacific Peoples Conference was held at Suva and where the choice of participants had to be made from those who had enough English to use it as a means of expression. This particular challenge also has to meet the need of a language for further education.
4.
Through education to rally people to a positive and explicit loyalty both because it is a good thing in itself but also because it is the main constructive contribution that we can make to combat communism and any other subversive influences.
5. Ways and means of harmonizing cooperation between all races and persons and all agencies engaged in the provision of education.
Fiji has a population roughly of 277,000 people of whom 123,000 are Fijians and 127,000 are Indians. There are about 51,000 children in school which represents 90% of Fijians and 60% of the Indians.
(1) The Fijians are a fascinating and absorbingly interesting society, closely knit, carefully organised with its whole pattern of life regulated by ceremony and tradition. The people themselves have a charm of manner and courtesy, and it is delightful to be in touch with them. The price paid for these delightful characteristics is very often a rather bland satisfaction with things as they are and a reluctance to accept change, or to recognise that change is necessary.
It is the custom in Fijian boys schools; particularly in the Queen Victoria School which is the only secondary school for Fijian boys to devote one session a week to teaching Fijian ceremony and custom and the teacher is always a wise man from the district, well versed in these ancient practices. At the Adi Cakubou Government Fijian Girls Intermediate School, which is now just over a year old, the same theme persists, for a beautifully built Bure (traditional house) is both literally and metaphorically the centre of the school. The outstanding
/feature
درا
54