King George V School (Gilbert and Ellice Islands) King George V School (Gilbert and Ellice Islands) King George V School (KGV) was a government high school for boys in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), within the British colony Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Throughout its history it was in multiple locations in South Tarawa and Abemama. It served as a boarding school, and trained people to be government workers and teachers. John Garrett, author of "Where Nets Were Cast: Christianity in Oceania Since World War II", wrote that many of its alumni "shaped a nucleus which assisted" the independence of what became Kiribati. It was originally located in Bairiki,
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands comprised over an area of of sea. The latter area was comparable in size to the continental United States. The water area is about 2% of the Pacific Ocean. The population of the islands was 200,000 in the latter part of the 19th century. The population decreased to 100,000 by 1969 due to emigration, war, and disease. At that time, the population inhabited less than 100 out of 2,141 of the Marshall, Mariana, and Caroline Islands. In 1947 the Mariana Islands' Teacher Training School (MITTS), a normal school serving all areas of the Trust Territory, opened in Guam. It moved