Queen Victoria School
p. 13 · Read in the full issue
Generous Grant For Queen Victoria School
THE recent announcement that the Secretary of State for the Colonies has allocated £lOO,OOO as a free grant for the rebuilding of the Queen Victoria School, at Tailevu, Fiji, should solve the problem of the school’s future.
The Queen Victoria School—the only secondary school for Fijians—was estab lished in 1887 at the time of the old Queen's jubilee. It was financed by the Fijians themselves.
During World War 11, the school was pushed out of its home at Nasinu to make way for a military hospital which later became a tuberculosis hospital and then a teachers’ training college.
A grant of land for a new school was made available by Sir Henry Milne Scott on the Tailevu coast and the new school building was given high priority in tbe Fiji Ten Years’ Plan. But when the Ten Years’ Plan was scrapped, the bu Id ng of the Queen Victoria School was apparently scrapped with it —until late last year when protests from Fijians and Europeans in the Colony had it placed at the top of the Revised Plan, with the promise of several thousands of pounds for the work.
Whether the amount allotted would have been sufficient to re-establ sh the school successfully, seems open to doubt.
But the free grant now given from the Colonial Welfare and Development Fund seems to get everyone out of an uncom fortable position very neatly.
Until the new school is completed it is presumed that the mipils will struggle along in the makeshift quarters at Nanu kuloa, in the north-east of Vanua Leva, as they have done now for about six years.