Education in the Cook Islands the 1900s. Fifty years later it reopened, in 1954, as a public school. The European School, began in the 1920s. In the 1930s, it was based in the Sunday School Hall, on the seaward side of the Avarua Cook Islands Christian Church at the main town in Rarotonga. It is not known at this stage as to whether it was a London Missionary Society school or privately run. However the school closed in the 1940s. In the late 1940s, the New Zealand administration opened the Avarua Side School, which was an adjunct school of the Avarua Maori School. In 1958,
Rarotonga Walker sighted the island in 1813 on the ship "Endeavour". The first recorded landing by a European was Captain Philip Goodenough with William Wentworth in 1814 on the schooner "Cumberland". On 30 May 1965, five sounding rockets were launched from Rarotonga for studying a solar eclipse. Rarotonga is divided into three main districts or "vaka" (tribes). Te Au O Tonga on the northern side of the island (Avarua is the capital), Takitumu on the eastern and southern side and Puaikura on the western side. On the other hand, the island is also divided into five Land Districts. The Land District