Banaban Boys For Lodoni

rENTY boys from Banaban settle ment on Rabi, Fiji, are to be en rolled this year at Provincial School Eastern, Lodoni.

The war seriously interrupted the edu cation of Banaban children. Their home, Ocean Island, was attacked from the air in December, 1942, and passed into enemy control. It was occupied shortly afterwards and in 1943 the Bana bans were removed, half to Nauru and the remainder to the Caroline Islands.

When liberation came in 1945, devas tation and the destruction during the war years made it impossible for the people to return to Ocean Island, and they were accordingly established on Rabi, which had been bought some time previously from the Fiji Government.

School equipment ana text books had of course, disappeared, but as soon as possible a school was opened on Rabi under the junior teacher from the Ocean Island School.

The Banaban boys who are to go to Provincial School Eastern will not be the school’s first pupils from outside Fiji.

Boys from other Islands in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony have been en rolled at Lodoni since the beginning of 1945. Some of them have been admitted to Queen Victoria School, and several have passed the Qualifying Examination conducted by the Department of Edu cation, Fiji. „ „ .. —Fiji Public Relations Office Bulletin.