TWO GILBERTESE TEACHERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26986, 11 March 1953, Page 11

TWO GILBERTESE TEACHERS

Year’s Training In Christchurch

DIRECTOR EXPLAINS ENVIRONMENT

Two Gilbertese teachers —Mr Rota Onorio and Mr Tebaubwebwe Tiata — who will spend this year at the Christchurch Teachers’ Training College, have seen in the last month their first sheep, their first cows, their first horses, their first trains, their first tram;?, their first rivers, and their first tall buildings. They have still to become accustomed to a new diet, to shoes, long trousers, coats, and ties, then to the bustle of a city, and later to a cooler climate. The Director of Education in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (Mr A. G. Kemp) accompanied the teachers as he has returned for six months’ leave to his home in Christchurch after a long absence including 13 years’ teaching in Fiji and service in the 3rd Battalion of the Fiji Infantry Regiment, in which he attained the rank of captain during the {Solomons campaign. Mr Kemp trained in Christchurch, and chose this city for his charges because he knows it and believes it preferable to the more cosmopolitan Auckland for islanders. The two students from the Gilbert Islands replace two from the Ellice Islands who spent last year in Christchurch. Two more will come each year until 1956 from schools in the colony. On their return they will each take charge of an islands school. “Besides the experience gained in the techniques of their profession, their experience in a modern and progressive country and their contacts with its people will be of inestimable value in widening the horizons of these two keen, able, and energetic islanders,” Mr Kemo said of his charges. Adjustment to a new way of life might have some difficulties, Mr Kemp continued, appealing for consideration. Mr Rota was at Tarawa during the Japanese occupation, and Mr Tebaubwebwe was captured on Ocean Island and spent the war years as a prisoner of the Japanese on Kusai in the Marshall islands. To give an understanding of the islands from which these men came, Mr Kemp described the present situation of the colony. “The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony is perhaps the most isolated Pacific territory today, and except for influx of first Japanese and then American troops during the war, most islanders have little or no contact with the outside world other than through travelling Government officers, missionaries, and occasional scientific survey teams,” he said. 10ft Above Sea Level The chain of islands of the group, which, lay across the Equator, covered a vast expanse of ocean—about 2,000,000 square miles. All were lowlying coral islands with a maximum height above sea level of 10 feet. The majority followed the pattern of the textbook coral atoll with strings of narrow, sandy, coconut-covered islets surrounding a lagoon to which access was gained by a passage in the encircling reef. Dotted along the islets beneath the palms were native villages consisting of neatly-arranged thatched huts with raised floors. Centrally placed in each village was the large meeting house, and at each end of the village were the mission pillage schools. In the larger villages ; there were co-operative stores which marketed the villagers’ copra and retail trade goods, and on each island, , generally at the largest village, was . the Government station with the [ thatched offices of the island government and the island hospital and disi pensary.

“Simple, Happy Life” “The villagers lead a simple, happy life, subsisting on a diet of fish, sea foods, coconuts, coconut toddy (sap), pandanus fruit, and an occasional giant taro, which is grown in pits at water level,” Mr Kemp said. “This simple but tasty diet is supplemented by the usual store foods, rice, flour and canned beef, which are bought with the proceeds of the sale of copra, handicrafts, or sharks’ fins.” • The missions were the pioneers of education in the Gilbert and Ellice

Islands colony, their activities dating back to the arrival of Dr. and Mrs Bingham, of the American. Board of Missions in November, 1857. The London Missionary Society and the Sacred Heart Mission became established in 1870 and 1888, respectively. Since the war the Seventh-day Adventist Mission had begun activities. At the 224 Government-assisted mission village schools of the two main mission bodies, almost 7000 of the 8144 school children in the colony received the bulk of their elementary education, Mr Kemp said. The remainder attended Government island schools, Government and mission central schools, mission girls’ schools, and pastor-teacher training establishments. “In recent years there has been increased Government participation in primary education, which has resulted in expanding teacher-training programmes. the establishment of island schools, closer co-operation with mission authorities, and increased grants in aid,” Mr Kemp said. A new modern central Government boys’ 'School with accommodation for 150 was being built, and would be opened in June. The original Government boys’ school was destroyed by enemy action during the wai*. Compulsory Education “Education in the colony is compulsory for both boys and girls between the ages of six and 16 years, and although the general standard is still low almost all adults are literate in their own language,” Mr Kemp said. “A recent estimate was that 98 per cent, were literate.” Although a British Colonial Territory administered by the Western Pacific High Commission, all three expatriate administrative posts in the education department of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony were held by New Zealanders. In the colony administrative service, too, there were six New Zealanders, and on the staff

>f the central colony hospital there vas a New Zealand nursing sister.