Levuka Public School 140th anniversary
TEACHERS, students and ex-scholars of Levuka Public School converged on Ovalau to celebrate the institution’s 140thanniversary last week.
While we admire how long the school has prospered and survived over the years since its humble inception in the 1800s, it is also important that we know and understand its history.
For without knowing the challenges and triumphs of LPS’ early years, we might not totally grasp the repute and character of this outstanding educational institution.
Here is how it all began!
On a fine Levuka afternoon of April 23, 1879, the Levuka Public School Board met for the first time to discuss issues pertaining to establishing the colony’s first public school.
Dr.J. Cruickshank chaired the meeting and among board members present were William Scott, founder of a law firm in those days and whose son Harry, enrolled as a pupil two years later and many years after became Sir Henry.
The board also included the auspices of Messrs M. Wilson, M.McCulloch, C.W.Drury, G.L.Griffiths, founder and owner of The Fiji Times, then a 10-year old newspaper, and J.M.Butt, the manager of the Bank of New Zealand.
The board had been appointed because, under the Public Schools Ordinance No. 10 of 1879 which decreed that “There shall be established in Levuka a Common School at which the ordinary branches of secular education shall be taught upon payment of fees.
The fees prescribed were one shilling per week for every child. This amount was reduced to sixpence a week for each additional child in the family.
The ordinance provided for the establishment of both “common and high schools” in Fiji together with technical schools to complement the basic education taught in villages by early Christian missions.
One of the first government-run technical schools in those days was set up in Yanawai on Vanua Levu.
The Levuka Common School which later became Levuka Public School was set up and regarded as the fountainhead of Fiji’s modern-day educational system.
The board of the school was charged with three main and expenditure, to find the staff to teach and find a permanent home for the school.
In the early years, annual expenditure of the school was 720 pounds and included the following: 450 pounds for a headteacher (and his wife) and an assistant teacher; 50 pounds for house rent, 10 pounds for the rent of a school building; 70 pounds for furniture and equipment and 50 pounds for incidentals.
To fund the school the board had planned to get 100 pounds in school fees and 345 pounds from an education rate levied on all Levuka property owners at the rate of two and a half cents in every dollar.
However, expenses proved higher than earlier estimated so in 1880, a year after LPS started, the education levy was increased to four and a half cents on the dollar.
The shortfall in finances was to be met through government allocation. The general understanding was that both the board and the government would engage in a cost-sharing arrangement, with each putting in half of the school costs.
An initial challenge was trying to locate a suitable place to set up the new school. The board wanted to use Levuka’s Mechanics Institute building on a piece of land negotiated with property owners.
Levuka residents joined the bandwagon and offered their shops and homes for rent ranging from the equivalent of 80 pounds a year to four pounds a week.
Eventually, the school board chose and rented the Oldfellows Hall, at one pound a week for six months. This was to give it enough time to acquire a permanent site for the school.
A headteacher and his assistant were appointed. The team was made up of a couple, Thomas Bonynge and his wife, who came from Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia.
A Fiji Times public notice of August 22, 1879, sent out by the board read:
“Notice is hereby given that the Levuka Common School will be opened at 9am on Monday 1st September in the Oldfellow’s Hall”.
“The school will be under the control of Mr Thomas Bonynge and the hours of attendance for pupils will be from 9am to 12 noon, and from 2 to 4pm daily.”
“The scale of fees, payable in advance will be: for each child, per week – 1 shilling and for the case of families, for the first child, per week – 1 shilling and for each additional child, per week – sixpence.”
The notice was authorised by chairman Cruickshank.
However, the school did not start as scheduled because the Oldfellows Hall was still not ready so the opening was moved to the following Monday.
Again, the
day fell on a public holiday so school eventually began on September 2, 1879 with 58 enrolled students. Half of the pupils were girls.
On its opening day, The Fiji Times stated: “Mr Bonynge expresses unqualified gratification with the appearance and style of his pupils and thinks he has admirable material to work on”.
By the end of 1879, the lease arrangement for Oldfellows Hall had lapsed and the school was “without a home” forcing the board to aggressively look for a piece of land to establish a permanent site.
At a meeting on March 7, 1881, the board selected a site near the
Totogo Creek although it had earlier refused it and offered a prize of 15 pounds for the best school design, which was won by G.W.Moore.
The tender for the construction of the school was awarded to McGregor and Milne for a sum of 975 pounds.
The school, with a double-storey structure, was completed and occupied in July 1881.
Commenting on the permanent site of the school an overseas inspector wrote in 1910:” It is difficult to imagine a more beautiful school ground. There is a fair playing space.”
The board embarked on a beautification programme and colonial secretary (later became Governor) J.B.Thurston suggested that native trees called lauci or candlenut be planted to provide shade.
In 1882, amid talks to move the capital to Suva and despite skepticism among parents and Levuka residents, enrollment number was more than the previous year.
However, between 1885 and 1890, because of severe economic depression, planters from the outer islands could not afford to send their children to Levuka to school.
The situation worsened by the destruction caused buy hurricanes in 1886 and 1889. Civil service salaries were cut and the number of government vacancies dropped.
The 1886 hurricane was such that it temporarily paralysed the “colony’s local trade” and destroyed “not less than one-half of its staple production”.
One of the school’s lowest points was reached in 1889 when the average attendance at the school nosedived to 40 pupils and there was only a need to use the bottom floor of the school building. Despite this, the school remained opened and 140 years later, remains open for the children of Ovalau and nearby islands in the Lomaiviti Group.
“LPS has a special place in the history of Fiji’s education system. Today, LPS is a high performing school and we continue to uphold the richness of the school’s culture and discipline,” said its principal Seru Banuve.
LPS has a school roll of 350 pupils consisting of 13 streams and four houses – Qaraniqio (blue), Tanoa (yellow), Ma’afu (green) and Mara (red).