ONE of the leading high schools in the country has successfully staged its cultural festival on Wednesday.
Honiara High School, in central Honiara was the centre of focus for students, parents, friends, and the general public who turned up in numbers to be part of the one day event.
About 20 participating cultural groups from different ethnic groups within the nine provinces of the country hit the stage with their unique and specials traditional performance based on the theme “Empowering students culturally through Education.”
In an interview with the school principal John Maetia, the event is being organized based on education purposes.
“As part of our education, this is just a normal approach of trying to do relevant teaching that suits the society.
“From a school leader’s point of view, this is an important aspect in nation building, where the students can reflect on the sense of belonging to know who they are and for one to appreciate his or her upbringing.
“Secondly, as part of the relevancy of education, we have not concentrated on the academic part in noting the importance of peaceful coexistence of each other. Until unless we know where our neighbours are from, what their cultures norms and values are, we can be able to stay together peacefully.
“Once we appreciate each other, peaceful coexistence within our societies will exist,” he said.
He told the Solomon Star that, since taking up the duty as the head of the school, it is the first time for such event to be hosted at Honiara High School.
He said that, they are looking at hosting similar events annually, and from the experience from the event, they are looking to improvise in hosting this event as a formal one.
Mr Maetia also calls on community leaders, especially educationists to have similar views in seeing the importance of culture as an essence part of growth.
“For Solomon Islands to move forward, we need to re-identify us, relook and rejuvenate who we are.
“Looking at Mamaloni’s statement which described Solomon Islands as a ‘country that is conceived but never born’, we can be born to re-identify ourselves by who we are, and then we can have strength or a base to stand on so that we can be able to limp or move forward,” the principal said.
State owned on school King George Sixth School on Tuesday also staged its cultural festival event.
By RONALD TOITO’ONA
