Better Education For

Fijian Parents Seek

Children In Towns

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, Feb. 7.

ONE Fijian having suggested in the Fiji Times that the Fijian Office could help to reduce the overcrowding in Suva’s slum areas by instructing Fijians who have come to the town to seek casual employment, a second Fijian came up with a warning that an over-drastic clear* out would be unjust to the Fijian parents who have come to Suva with the object of giving their children a better educa tion than is available in the village schools, where the standard is admittedly low.

This, the Fiji Times says editorially, brings up a genuine problem. It has been stated officially that the taxation levied on Fijians for their own schools has reached the absolute limit. At the same time the Fijians have been taught to seek education, and they cannot be blamed for linking the swift economic progress of the Indians with the constant Indian demand for education.

Dealing with the persistent Indian de mand for more Indian schools at Govern ment expense, this time from another angle (an Indian wail because the Teachers’ Training College could accom modate only two out of 88 Indians who applied for admission), the Oceania Daily News suggested bluntly that the Indian education problem is out of hand and that measures to curb the Indian popu lation flood is the only solution.

Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Fulton and their two young daughters, of New Britain, will re turn to their plantation in early March.

They have been in Australia for several months.