Figure 1.--This photo was taken in Nikao Side School (1966). It shows a 2nd and 3rd grades class. Nikao is a 'tapere' (sub-district) in the north of Rarotonga Island (Cook Islands). A year earlier, in 1965, the Cook Islands became a self-governing territory in free association with New Zealand. In the photo there is only one native girl. The other students are New Zealanders. The pupils don't precisely wear a school uniform, but many wore New Zealand school uniform garments. I think there my have been some school guidelines about dress code. All girls wear sleeveless dresses (most checkered). All the boys wear short sleeves shirts and short pants. Probably about footwear there were no rules and most pupils opted for bare feet or flip-flops. It is a little strange that the boy wearing sandals also wore socks.
The Cook Island archepelago consists of fifteen small islands located in the South Pacific northeast of New Zealand. The different Cook Islands first was united as the Kingdom of Rarotonga (1858). Britain estanlished a protectorate and created a federal parliament (1888). A New Zealand began to become a more independent Dominion, Britain transfrred authority for the Cook Islands (1901). The Islands were beyond the area conquered by the Japanese in World War II and thus escaped the damage expeienced by other South Pacific islands. The Cook Islands today are a self-governing parliamentary democracy, freely associated with New Zealand. The school system is largely based on the New Zealand education system and the children wear New Zealand style school uniforms.
