History

Ellen G White saw the importance of Bible instruction to be given to children on a daily basis and encouraged the establishing of schools wherever church companies were formed.

In 1890 there were nine Adventist primary schools worldwide, most of them were attached to Seventh-day Adventist colleges. There we no Adventist secondary schools at that time.

By 1900 the Adventist schools had grown to 220 institutions in the United States alone, as well as schools in Canada, England, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Africa, Argentina, Denmark and Brazil.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific launched its own day school system in the late 1890s. Australia's first Adventist primary school was opened on April 28, 1897 on the campus of the Avondale School for Christian Workers. There were 25 primary pupils that year. The school was temporarily housed in a room in the ladies' dormitory. Avondale Primary School is the earliest Adventist church school and has been in operation for the longest in the South Pacific division. It currently has 402 students and is located on Avondale Road, Cooranbong alongside the Avondale High School which has 456 students.

New Zealand was also showing interest in starting up schools but it's first attempts in Ponsonby in 1902 and Christchurch in 1903 failed because of inadequate resources. The first ongoing school was opened in Napier in late 1903 followed by Lower Hutt, Petone and New Plymouth by 1905.

An interesting feature of the earliest church schools in New Zealand was their determination to offer a distinctive Adventist curriculum.

The opening of the New Zealand boarding school in 1908 was a milestone in the development of Christian education in the South Pacific. It operated under the name "Pukekura", Maori for "I love the place" and was situated near Cambridge. It was relocated in 1913 to its current site at Longburn Adventist College near Palmerston North. 1915 saw the opening of the first Adventist school in the South Island of New Zealand at Christchurch.