Te Ariki Terau Mana Strickland (born 22 June 1918) was a Cook Island

Cook Islands

The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...

 educator and politician. He was the Minister of Education in the first Cook Islands government after self-government was obtained in 1965.

Strickland was born in Mangaia

Mangaia

Mangaia is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga.-Geography:...

. He was a teacher and taught at schools in Pukapuka

Pukapuka

Pukapuka is a coral atoll in the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean, with three small islets threaded on a reef that encloses a beautifully clear lagoon. It is the most remote island of the Cook Islands, situated about 1140 kilometres northwest of Rarotonga. It is a triangular atoll with three...

, Mauke

Mauke

Mauke is a raised atoll island, the eastern most of the Cook Islands.-Geography:...

, Aitutaki

Aitutaki

Aitutaki, also traditionally known as Araura, Ararau and Utataki, is one of the Cook Islands, north of Rarotonga. It has a population of approximately 2,000. Aitutaki is the second most visited island of the Cook Islands. The capital is Arutanga on the west side.-Geography:Aitutaki is an "almost...

, and Rarotonga

Rarotonga

Rarotonga is the most populous island of the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 , out of the country's total population of 19,569.The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga...

. Eventually he became the headmaster at Avarua

Avarua

Avarua is a town and district in the north of Rarotonga Island, the national capital of the Cook Islands...

 School, the largest primary school in the Cook Islands. Strickland was also a lecturer at the Cook Islands Teachers' College. As a teacher, he wrote language instruction books on Cook Islands Māori

Cook Islands Maori

The Cook Islands Māori language, also called Māori Kūki 'Āirani or Rarotongan, is the official language of the Cook Islands. Most Cook Islanders also call it Te reo Ipukarea, literally "the language of the Ancestral Homeland"....

.

Strickland was a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Cook Islands prior to self-government. He was elected to the Parliament of the Cook Islands

Parliament of the Cook Islands

The Parliament of the Cook Islands is the legislature of the Cook Islands. Originally established under New Zealand colonial rule, it became the national legislature on independence in 1965....

 in the 1965 election

Cook Islands general election, 1965

General elections were held in the Cook Islands on 20 April 1965 to elect 22 MPs to the Cook Islands Legislative Assembly. The elections were won by the Cook Islands Party and saw Albert Henry become the Cook Islands' first Prime Minister....

 as a representative of the Cook Islands Party

Cook Islands Party

The Cook Islands Party is a nationalist political party in the Cook Islands. It was the first political party founded in the Cook Islands, and one of the two major parties of the Islands' politics since 1965....

 (CIP). When the Cook Islands Constitution entered into force on 4 August 1965, Strickland became the self-governing country's first Minister of Education.

Strickland was a first cousin to Albert Henry

Albert Henry

Albert Royle Henry was the first Premier of the Cook Islands. He was forced to resign from that post in a 1978 voting scandal for which he was later convicted of fraud...

, the Cook Islands' first premier

Prime Minister of the Cook Islands

The Prime Minister of the Cook Islands is the official rsponsible for heading Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's government in the Cook Islands, a self-governing territory in free association with New Zealand. The office was established in 1965, when self-government was first granted to the islands...

. Strickland resigned from CIP and the Cabinet in 1968 to protest what he viewed as mismanagement of the government by Henry. Strickland joined the United Cook Islanders

United Cook Islanders

The United Cook Islanders was a political party in the Cook Islands. It was established on 16 February 1968 in order to challenge the then-dominant Cook Islands Party and provide a more organised opposition. The party was organised by David Hosking and Taira Rere. Prominent members included...

 party and served in the parliamentary opposition after the 1968 election

Cook Islands general election, 1968

General elections were held in the Cook Islands on 1 May 1968 to elect 22 MPs to the Cook Islands Legislative Assembly. The Cook Islands Party increased its number of seats from 14 to 16, while the newly formed United Cook Islanders won six seats to become the parliamentary opposition.Summary of...

.

Strickland was a prominent member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...

 in the Cook Islands and was active in community affairs, being the chairman of the Cooperative Movement and the chairman of the Cook Islands Thrift and Loan Society. He was awarded the British Empire Medal

British Empire Medal

The Medal of the Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service, usually known as the British Empire Medal , is a British medal awarded for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown...

 in 1989 and an honorary master's degree from the University of the South Pacific

University of the South Pacific

The University of the South Pacific is a public university with a number of locations spread throughout a dozen countries in Oceania. It is an international centre for teaching and research on Pacific culture and environment. USP's academic programmes are recognised worldwide, attracting students...

in 1995.

Strickland married Mauariki Roi in 1938 and was the father of eight children.

Publications

• Mana Strickland (1968). Colonialism and self-government exemplified by events in the Cook Islands. (Rarotonga).
• —— (1979). Say it in Rarotongan : an Instant Introduction to the Common Language of the Cook Islands (Sydney: Pacific Publications, ISBN 0858070413)
• —— "Self-Government and the New Colonialism" in Ron Crocombe (ed) (1979). Cook Islands Politics : The Inside Story (Polynesian Press, Auckland, ISBN 0908597002)

External links

• "Papa Mana Strickland: A Bastion of Education", Ministry of Education of the Cook Islands, 2008-12-15