is Expanding

Training Fijian Girls

Adi Cakobau School is Expanding

Prom Our Own Correspondent COMMEMORATING a beautiful and gracious lady of the Fijian nobility, Adi Cakobau School for Fijian girls has, in the post war years, become a fitting counterpart to the long-established Queen Victoria School for boys.

Today the school, in a picturesque setting at Sawani, 12 miles from Suva, is educating Fijian girls to take their rightful place in the development of the Fijian race.

On July 13, Adi Cakobau’s distinguished son, Colonel Ratu Edward Cakobau laid the founda tion stone of the school’s new tuition block.

He recalled that for 25 years after the signing of the Deed of Cession in 1874 there were no schools for Fijian girls. From 1900 to 1932 there were mission schools for girls but no Government schools.

It was 64 years after Cession that Adi Cakobau School was established.

“It was a monstrous loss to us,” said Ratu Edward. “It will be many years before Fijian womenfolk recover from the setback imposed in the years where there was no counterpart for girls of Queen Victoria School.”

The new tuition block, designed on the most modern lines (April PIM. page 140), will enable the school roll to be increased from 120 to at least 180.

Adi Cakobau School, much of whose present high status is due to the devoted work of the Principal— Miss F. Charlton, a New Zealander—started with three classes n an intermediate school.

Gradually, secondary classes were added, and it is intended that ultimately it will become an entirely secondary school.

The school’s attractive array of alertly intelligent girls, and its record of achievement in academic and domestic subjects, are proof of its growing influence in Fijian life.

On a golden afternoon in December, 1953, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the school—one of the most idyllic interludes of the Royal visit to Fiji.

H Mr. A. M. L. Benjamin, Assistant Government Storekeeper, Fiji, has left on a year’s vacation leave before retirement.