Toms Note: I continue with the history of the mission schools in Sarawak
St. Mary’s
In 1882, only one girl was being educated in St. Thomas, the Anglican school at Kuching. At the efforts of Mrs Hose, a day school was started in 1883. However, it was the efforts of the wife of the Archdeacon that got things rolling. She had convinced the conservative Chinese of the importance of education and by 1887 had twenty-four girls enrolled. The Anglican mission decided to restore and renovate the old Boys School for female education. The school was financed by both the mission fund and the Rajahs contribution and opened its doors in 1887. The school adopted the name St. Mary’s in 1900. An expansion of the school to three stories was made but the results were not successful until the Chinese realized the value in the Chinese “marriage mart.”
St. Teresa’s
St Josephs girl counterpart school was opened in 1885. The St Teresa’s Convent School finally had their building in 1925. From the beginning, the school offered an English language educated education and emphasised domestic work like laundry, needlework, cooking and childcare.
The Catholic Missions
The Catholic fathers were not welcome in Sarawak by Rajah James or Rajah Charles until 1883. For political reasons, mainly to tame the Dyaks, Rajah Charles pledged financial support to the Mill Hill Society. The Mill Hill Society, named for a part of London, later became Saint Josephs Missionary Society.
The fathers opened St. Josephs Boys School and in 1883(?) and in 1894 a new brick building was erected and dedicated by Rajah Charles. The number of pupils enrolled paralleled St. Thomas School, the Anglican school establish earlier (see a previous article).
St Josephs offered an academic curriculum but also included shoemaking, tailoring and agricultural work. The school did not encourage the academic side but emphasized vocational education. It had a farm with 500 paper vines and another with 4,000 coffee plants whose profits supported the school. The curriculum was utilitarian and provided a practical education to the boys’ life.
St Josephs and St. Thomas schools were not much different. They were both organized like schools in England but St. Josephs was more continental than English. The teachers were from Holland and Austria and a sense of discipline reigned in the hallways.
There was not any serious difficulty with finances as there was at St.Thomas. The school was supported by the farms and was well provided for by its catholic patrons back in England. Teaching shortages were non-existent as they were able to pay the current rate for instructors.
The educational work in the outstation schools of St. Joseph, in Rajah Charles view, was to pacify the Ibans. The mission first opened a school in the lower Rejang and had six Iban boys in a bamboo hut. The Rajah was not supportive of the mission school and ordered it posted upriver at Kapit rather than along the coast.
The Kapit mission was not to Rajah Charles liking and he recommended another move to Kanowit. The two priests involved opened a school there in 1884.
The Franciscan Mission opened a separate school for girls in 1887 at the same mission. The sisters at the school taught Iban girls hygiene, domestic skills, childcare and caring for the sick.
The Kanowit mission school taught crop cultivation and animal husbandry as well as reading, writing and arithmetic. Of course, a good dose of Catholicism was included. The school was a proud owner of a coffee and fruit plantation at Ranan, a short distance upriver from the school. Wet rice cultivation was introduced with buffalos from North Borneo (Sabah) and their Dusun drovers.
In 1897, the mission expanded to Bau in the upper Sarawak and the Chinese occupied Sibu. The Sacred Heart School was established in 1903. The Sacred Heart Convent school for girls opened in 1937.
The Cut school, named after the Kut River, flourished in the Melanau delta. For some reason, the mission was moved to Dalat and the school continued to flourish. The priests asked permission to a school at Muka, the Rajah agrees as long as no one was converted. Rajah Charles provided the land.
The Roman Catholic mission also operated schools in the upper Sarawak and the land Dyaks of Singghi. The Bau school open in 1898 and were mainly Chinese.
The Methodist Missions
The Methodist Missionaries were mainly based in Sibu to deal with the incoming Foo Chow population. Efforts were made to educate the Iban population. Most of the pupils were from the Bawang Assam area. The school closed a year later. The Methodist missionaries also worked in the Upper Rejang where a boarding school was opened in 1940.
Other mission schools
The Seventh Day Adventists opened a school at Ayer Manis on the Kuching Serian Road. The school combined both academic and vocational education, the latter in the form of agricultural training for its Bidayuh students.
The Australian based Borneo Evangelical Mission opened a Bible school instead of a vocational school as mandated by the Rajah. It was a purely religious school.
Tom’s note: As an educator, one cannot tell if the mission schools were a success or a failure. The author would have you believe they were not successful. The Dyaks did not learn English, become a united pacific race and settled into government estates. However, if one Dyak girl who learned the mechanics of childbirth spread this knowledge throughout the Dyak community was this, not a success? A Dyak boy who learned a new method to cultivate rice and spread his knowledge to other farmers was this, not a success?
Duduk bangku enda bulih padi:
Utai pinsel enda nyadi sangkah babi
Sitting on a school bench does not grow rice
A pencil is no use for spearing a pig.
From: Mission Education in Sarawak During the Period of Brooke Rule by Ooi Keat Gin in the Sarawak Museum Journal December 1991
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