Corporate entry: Marine Training School

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Early marine training in the Protectorate was done through the Marine Department, providing staff to run its small fleet of ships. Particularly after the Western Pacific High Commission headquarters shifted to Honiara in 1953, these ships serviced the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), Fiji and Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Plans began in 1960 to establish a Maritime (later Marine) Training School in Honiara for crews of WPHC and Protectorate government vessels. The first course began in April 1961, using facilities at Tulagi until permanent buildings were completed at Kukum that November. The school was named T. S. (Training Ship) Ranadi Marine Training School, after the early government vessel MV Ranadi (q.v.) which was used for training students. The school was expanded during 1962 to include dormitories for thirty students. The first principal of the modern school was Captain John Anderson. The first Solomon Islanders to receive Outer Islands Masters tickets were John Patteson Filei (1963) and acting Chief Bosun Henry Kolitogi from Ruavatu, and Luke Siwai of the Melanesian Mission (1965). In 1968, there were fifty students, twenty of them on the training ship receiving advanced and pre-sea instruction as marine mechanics. The workshop was located in a Quonset hut on the Agricultural Training College grounds. The Marine Training School became part of the Honiara Technical College (q.v.) and later became the School of Marine and Fisheries Studies of the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education. (NS July 1960, Nov. 1961, 1 Nov. 1962, 31 June 1965, 31 Jan. 1968)

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  • British Solomon Islands Protectorate (ed.), British Solomon Islands Protectorate News Sheet (NS), 1955-1975. Details