Educating The Gilbert

And Ellice Islanders

TNSTRUCTION to the primary standard is being given to 6,924 scholars in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands through four Government schools and 79 mission schools, according to the Colony’s Annual Report on Education for 1935, just issued.

Including subsidies to the two missions carrying on the work of education—the Uondon Missionary Society and the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Order—the Govern ment’s expenditure on education during the period was £3,960.

Throughout the Gilbert Islands, instruc tion is given in the vernacular, except at the King George V. School (Tarawa) and the Sacred Heart Boys’ School (Butaritari), where English prevails. The medium in the Ellice Group is Samoan, due to the influence and example of the early L.M.S.

Samoan missionaries and to the affinity of the Ellice dialect with Samoan.

During the year two students of the King George School—one Gilbertese and one Ellice Islander—were sent to the Cen tral Medical School at Suva, Fiji. This made four students—two Gilbertese and two Ellice Islanders—in 'residence there.

Three scholars at that school qualified as

Native Medical Practitioners, and were ap pointed to the G. and E. Medical Depart ment. Eight ex-students of the King George School are now in service as N.M.P.’s in the Group.