Is Fijian Education Unrealistic?

Or a Pattern Which Australia Might Follow in New Guinea?

By Judy Tudor

WITH few exceptions, an educated New Guinea native is one who can write . a f P r . m of who can say (with a faint chance of knowing what he is talking about): “Two now two ’e wbo can re P ea L a i so * n Pidgin, Had M s ry • .°5 the. Lord’s Prayer. nl „ educated Fijian can take his place alongside the educated New Zealander, the education mcihtues available—if not availed of being relatively the same in pom cases.

For the New Guinea native, education, even of the most elementary variety, was the exception and, except in Rabaul, was left entirely to the missions, whose sphere of influence was limited generally to those villages in close proximity to their stations. There was no compulsion, either from within the native community or without. If a child happened to live near a mission school, and his parents, or he, wished it, he could attend what elementary classes were available. Otherwise, he remained as blissfully ignorant as his forefathers of 1,000 years ago In Mandated New Guinea the old cry from Europeans was that an “educated” native was generally a pain in the neck The same variety of complaint, although in somewhat different form, is heard in Fiji to-day. Some believe that the whole educational policy for Fijians is hopelessly unrealistic; that it creates a person who is neither a good Fijian nor a good

European; and that the Fijians, by and large, would be better employed learning something of “practical value to their village community life.”

THERE is much good sense in some of these sentiments; certain aspects of the Government-set curriculum seem futile enough in all conscience. I felt so myself recently at the Ballantine Memo rial School for Fijian girls in Suva, when a teen-age lass recited the same old jingle I, too, had learned in New Zealand some years ago: The sand of the desert is sodden red, Red with the wreck of the square that broke; The gatling’s jammed and the Colonel’s dead And the regiment’s blind with dust and smoke . . .

I used to recite that with facility, also, but it is only in the last few years that I have learned what a gatling is, precisely; and as I listened to that Fijian maiden, who knew only Fiji, I wondered if deserts and gatlings conveyed very much to her, or whether a smattering of the British classics would avail her much in the life she would probably lead after school days are passed.

The same doubt can be expressed, of course, about the European slum child; and the fact remains that, impractical as the educational policy of Fiji may be, there is a policy of native education, and at present, anything up to 20,000 Fijian children receiving an elementary edu cation. If this is far from ideal, it is a beginning from which a great deal can be built, and half a century ahead of conditions in the South-west Pacific Territories, where almost nothing has been done.

The realists might comfort themselves, too, with the thought that if, as appears a mathematical certainty, the white race is on the way out and will in time be

supplanted by the, more prolific Asiatic and coloured races, it might be as well for the remnants of our race if we laid for the new masters of the world a foun dation of culture such as was laid for us by our forebears. Looked at in this light, there may be something in the Fijian girl knowing something of the voice of the school-boy that rallied the rafiks by shouting “play up and play the game” at the critical moment.

THE Fiji system, even as it stands to day, bears study by Australia and other countries with interests in the Pacific who have done virtually nothing to improve the intellectual capacity of their stone-age subjects.

The casual observer, comparing Fiji- Polynesia with Melanesia, is inclined to wipe off the Melanesian as an impossible subject for advancement or education of any kind, seeing only a near-savage in feathers and throwing-spear. But this is sheer nonsense.

Nothing ails the Melanesian intel lectually except his centuries - long isolation. The Fijian, too, is Melanesian, but his is probably now the finest race in the Pacific. Go into any isolated Aus tralian or New Zealand community to day—and there still are many—and there you will see people who look as though they have but recently crawled from beneath a stone; where inbreeding and insularity have produced intellects that are generally sub-normal.

The bulk of the natives of the South west Pacific still live in isolated village communities, speaking a language that is not understood by the village on the neighbouring hill. Such segregation does not make for intellectuals; yet any Euro pean resident of this part of the Pacific can name at least several natives who, within the limited scope of their en vironment, are 100 per cent, intelligent.

The South-west Pacific Melanesian is as capable of enlightenment as the Fijian Melanesian —but it will take possibly 50 years longer.

EDUCATION in Fiji is not free —each community contributes to the cost of its schools —and is compulsory only for Fijians, and then not through the Education Act, but through native regu lations, Two sets of schools flourish side by side: mission schools and those of the Government —although the former greatly outnumber the latter. Government schools have been in existence only since 1916; before that date education was solely in the hands-of the mission; after that year they were aided by Govern ment grants.

The Department of Education came into being in 1926 and the regulations were drawn up only in 1929. At the present time further reorganisation and the expenditure of £365,000 is contem plated, but new schemes of development await consideration of a report sub mitted by Mr. F. R. Stephens, of the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs, and a further report on this report made by the Fiji Education Board and sub mitted to the Colonial Office Advisory Committee for Education in London.

Why Mr. Stephens, an economist at tached to the NZ Internal Affairs De partment/and with no previous connection with educational matters, should have been selected to make a report on the highly specialised policy of Fiji, is one of those mysteries of government that are without answer. His now famous report can be described, however, as be ing unanimously accepted in the Colony —unanimous, because neither the Edu cation Department or the missions, whom it most concerned, could see much sense in it.

One of his recommendations was that

mission schools should be taken over by the Government —some of them im mediately, and all as soon as possible.

The Education Department does not agree with this view; it is maintained that the missions have done, and do, extremely well, and should remain. It is expected, however, that the Depart ment will take over the training of teachers as soon as practicable.

The official attitude is that education in the Colony should have a religious background, whether it is Christian, Hindu or Moslem, and in this the mis sions are best qualified to give results.

The missions, in the past, have done a tremendous amount for education in Fiji, not only among the Fijians, but also among the Indians. Their teachers have been more than * teachers; they have been men and women who were con tent to devote their whole lives to the betterment of the native races and who looked upon 'their teaching as a means of service and not merely as a job.

The Department sets the mission syl labus and, of course,' maintains indirect control. There seems no good reason why Mr. Stephens should wish to make a clean sweep of these institutions which have been built up over so many years for the Colony’s good.

THERE are 157 Fijian district schools in the Colony; that is, primary schools built by the Fijians, staffed by trained native teachers (selected and paid by the District Officer) and assisted by untrained teachers. The Government is responsible for 80 per cent, of the salary of trained teachers, and the Fijian community pays for the rest. These schools teach up to class five, and pro mising pupils go on to one of the five provincial schools, mostly as boarders.

They pay no fees individually, but the Fiji districts pay at the rate of £lO per annum for each child sent.

From the provincial schools pupils may go to the Queen Victoria -Memorial School or other secondary schools, where they sit for the Qualifying Examination —a sort of Public Servi9e entrance. (About 250 sat for this examination in 1944; of those who qualified four or five become medical students at the Central Medical School; others enter the Teachers’

Training College, train as nurses, or be come clerks in Government Departments or the Colony’s business houses.) The standard required for this examination appears to be part-way between the old Proficiency Certificate at the end of the primary school period in New Zealand schools, and the NZ Intermediate.

The Methodist Mission started the first teachers’ training school without any aid from the Government, but in 1929 sup port was given and, at, the same time, the Government established a college of its own. The Catholic Mission also has an establishment.

During the war years the training schools have been combined and there are 116 teachers in training at present— a number far short of requirements.

THE aim of the Fiji Government in the education of Fijians is to give all a completely general education, based on the New Zealand system, but with emphasis on agriculture and hygiene.

Most of the schools have gardens which make them largely self-supporting in the way of food, and the Queen Victoria School has a small dairy herd.

At least two periods of instruction in hygiene are provided in all schools each week, where pupils learn rules for clean liness, health, food, etc., as well as ele mentary physiology.

Pupils can recite lengthy rules for fresh air, vitamins, and other oddments of useful knowledge—but these excellent theories are by no means always applied to everyday Fijian life.

I was dumbfounded at the modern Fijian’s appetite for jam-sponge and coloured fizzy drinks, and no less so by the amazing amount of clothing worn.

Even the smallest children in the villages wear clothes —as nearly as possible the same sort of clothes as their European brothers and sisters.

I recently travelled by bus along the King’s Road on one of the hottest days Fiji can produce, jammed tightly against a large-sized Fijian matron in all the neck-to-knee trappings of Fijian woman kind and her small son, aged about three.

Son was a fine little fellow —what you could see of him left over from a thick woollen jersey, origin Britain or New Zea land, several sizes too large, which re vealed only a perspiring little face from the chin upwards, his finger tips, and the calves of his legs. It would be interest ing to know the relative incidence of TB in Fiji and, for example, Papua, where neither men or women are permitted to

wear anything above the waist, and only the flimsiest covering below.

A SURVEY of Fiji education demon aY strates two things—how slow the whole process is, m general; and, at (he same time, the high results that can he obtained. It might be called un realistic; but, already, it has turned out

aVe ha £ a pro " influence for good upon their own \ e D sa 9fi e c r ?; nn ke sa of the South-west Pacific Territories, where no SuS I!°T f has K e ? orged froi T the known much beyond the confines of his own village.

This, of course, may be soon a thing of the past. Although Australia neglected native education in her Territories almost entirely, up until the outbreak of the Pacific war, Mr. Ward’s new set-up

plans great things in this direction. A team of anthropologists and other ex perts has been working on the new education scheme for the last two years, and a Director of Education, we are in formed, has been appointed to the Pro visional Government.

But what form Ihe education system is to take or what its aims are remains a dark secret. The scheme, if it is to be of any use at all, will necessarily have to be suited to the primitive conditions of the bulk of the natives concerned. The Australian Government might have done well to send an expert to Fiji to study elementary Fijian schools there.

The education of the Fijian is com paratively easy, in that they themselves desire it, or their chiefs desire it for them; and they are all nominally Chris tians.

In New Guinea and other South-west Pacific Territories there are none of the closely-knit community ties of Fiji. The village ip the unit; and, left to them selves, the natives seek no larger world Neither can the Luluai (or headman) lead or influence his flock to the same extent as the Fijian chief.

It will be interesting to see how the newly-appointed educational experts of the New Guinea Administration will set about the problem of inculcating, in these primitives, the desire to acquire knowledge outside of that necessary for the practical business of every-day exist ence. With the coastal natives, and those who have been long in contact with Europeans through indentured labour, the approach will not be so difficult.

ALL this prodding the simple savage into the highways and byways of our European-type education and speeding-up his thinking apparatus willy nilly may seem to the old-time resident pf the Pacific pure wasted effort. What is to become of the natives, once they have acquired the necessary classical knowledge? Will it help them to more efficiently cultivate the village taro patch; or be better natives?

Probably not. But if the purpose of education is to produce minds capable of far-thinking and planning, then, out of the welter of discontents and square pegs, which it will surely produce, it may produce, as well, a race of native people who will be capable of taking a more

realistic stand in the world that is steadily, year by year, being relinquished into their hands.

In the case of the Fijians, it might finally engender a national spirit suf ficiently bold to solve the so-called “Indian problem,” which the European residents of the Colony, up to date, have found insoluble.