Fifty worthy years
10-Feb-2010

‘Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you’ (Leviticus 25:10).

Suva Grammar turns fifty this year and it has much to be proud of.

Jubilee celebrations that kicked off at Veiuto on Tuesday underscored the contribution Grammarians have made since the school became Fiji’s co-educational, multiracial leader in 1960.

While a sprinkling of ex-Grammarian representatives from all walks of professional and career backgrounds was on hand to witness 1940s boarder, Robert Harness, cut the golden jubilee anniversary cake yesterday, few would recall the days when it was an exclusive school open only for children of expatriates and locals with European surnames, and when, therefore, even able high chiefs and wealthy Gujeratis could not obtain admission.

But as times changed, Grammar kept pace with those changes.

As colonial societies were deconstructed and literally dismantled in terms of European administration, grammar schools all over the British Empire were remodelled to take account of local needs and to continue the pursuit of academic excellence among former colonized peoples.

Universal literacy became a theme; years at school were lengthened; school curricula were accordingly broadened and deepened.

Enrolment gates and teaching positions were opened up to all races and new outcomes were realized as schools like Suva Grammar presented opportunities for burgeoning post-colonial middle classes who rightly saw qualifications and credentials as the pathway to a better future.

No doubt, without schools like Grammar, struggling small island nations like Fiji would have lost all of its brightest minds overseas.

At its inception, Grammar presented the possibility of obtaining a first-rate and predominantly secular schooling within the colony of Fiji.

Since Independence, Grammar has maintained that reputation despite the ups and downs of the national political landscape with its uneven impacts on both the education budgets of Fiji’s families and on school resources.

The proof of that is seen in ex-Grammarians willingly and ably represented in roles of national leadership in every field of endeavour over the past fifty years.

From military to medicine, from politics to business, from sport to arts, in law, in music and in science, and from engineering to technology, Grammarians of one kind or other have added value to the nation during the past five decades.

Grammar has also shown that our best schools not only work to respectfully transmit and preserve the values of our cultural past, but that they also critically shape each new generation of students to adapt to social changes and work toward societal reform and improvement too.

Grammar’s motto is ‘Seek and Ye Shall Find’ (the words of Jesus as found in Matthew 7:7).

The truth is that when it comes to life, we only find what we are willing to put there first through learning and experience, and schools like Grammar are worthy starting points in that journey to wisdom.

Congratulations to Suva Grammar as it reviews and celebrates its past fifty years.

It has every right to be proud of its record and as it commences its next fifty years, we trust it will maintain its leadership in educational quality and teaching standards that have dutifully served succeeding generations of past students who, having gone there, have sought, and indeed, found.