Rarotongans Are Being Trained
p. 40 · Read in the full issue
For Cook Is. Service
Rarotongans Are Being Trained In New Zealand
IT is part of the Cook Islands native policy to select each year up to three of the most promising scholars in Raro tonga for a three-years course at Te Aute College for Maori Boys and at Hukarere College for Maori Girls at Napier, New Zealand, said the Resident Commissioner (Judge H. F. Ayson, C.M.G.) in the Annual Report for 1935, which has just been issued.
Scholarships are given only for the number of youths and girls who can be absorbed into positions in the Cook Islands Administration service on their return.
It is believed that this intensive train ing where they are at all times in an environment where English is spoken; where they rub shoulders with their more enlightened Maori cousins and imbibe some of their ideals and traditions; and have their outlook widened beyond the range of their small islands, will assist succeed ing generations more and more to replace the less senior European officials of the Administration, and in giving oppor tunities for the people more and more to govern themselves.
The result so far has been worth while.
Native operators are now successfully running wireless stations (in conjunction with school teaching) in the outer islands; native medical practitioners after some years at Te Aute have qualified at the Central Medical School at Suva and are working in the Group; a matriculated lad is attached to the staff in Rarotonga; and a number of the native school-teachers are occupying more or less important positions.