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can you please listen to this video according to the time provided from 13.54-17.13 to answer the questions which is given in the picture below.
Slide 7: Development since 1970s (13.54 – 17.13)
Question 8: Complete the notes for this section, using ONE word that you have heard in the audio to complete each space.
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Slide 7: Development since 1970s (13.54 – 17.13) Question 8:
Complete the notes for this section, using ONE word that you
have heard in the audio to complete each space. Origi…
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can you please help me answer this question. can you please read paragraphs below to answer my questions.
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+ 5 SP G M Dashboard Students v Teaching Staff v M uestion 1 22
7 RP ot yet swered text. The final reading quiz of the course is a
summary of the whole paper you have read. Complete …
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Rethinking Educational Reform: A Pacific Perspective
A paper presented at the international conference “Redesigning Pedagogy: Research, Policy & Practice” National Institute of Education, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, 30th May – 1st June, 2005.
Prepared by Priscilla Puamau
The PRIDE Project, Institute of Education University of the South Pacific
www.usp.ac.fj/pride
Rethinking Educational Reform: A Pacific Perspective1
Priscilla Puamau
The PRIDE Project, Institute of Education, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
Introduction
A groundswell of opinion on the critical importance of rethinking education in the Pacific is rising from Pacific nations and their educators. They recognise that their education systems are still caught up in a colonised time warp despite the fact that most Pacific nations have been politically independent for some decades. The issues of control and ownership of the processes and structures of education are particularly important to them. As well, an interrogation of the values and assumptions that underpin formal education is taking place in knowledge sites such as universities. Pacific educators are concerned that the same issues around access, equity, relevance, quality, efficiency and effectiveness that confronted Pacific education three decades ago still abound today despite much investment in educational reform by governments and donor agencies.
For the purposes of this paper, the Pacific refers to the 15 independent countries in the Pacific region2. This includes four larger nations: Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands and Vanuatu; seven not so large nations: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Kiribati, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), Samoa and Tonga; and four small island nations: Niue, Nauru, Tokelau and Tuvalu. From the smallest nation of Tokelau to the largest of PNG, many reforms are being undertaken in an attempt to improve the quality of their education systems.
Using postcolonial theory, this paper analyses the impact of such forces as colonialism, globalisation and educational aid on the capacity of Pacific nations to attain and maintain control and ownership of their education systems: the content and processes of learning; pedagogies of the teacher; organisational structures; management cultures; and approaches to assessment and evaluation. The paper attempts to provide a way forward by exploring conceptual underpinnings that lead to a new approach based on syncretisation of: the local and the global; insider and outsider perspectives; academic, technical and lifelong learning; and the temporal and the spiritual. In rethinking educational reform in the Pacific region, it is important to take a holistic approach. The privileging of a more subjective and spiritual approach to educational reform is the thread that will seek to integrate the paper.
In this paper, I take a ‘strategic essentialist’ (Spivak, 1990, 1995) position as an ‘insider’ indigenous Pacific Islander. My treatment of the Pacific region seems to assume homogeneity when this is clearly not the case. I acknowledge the heterogeneity, complexities, specificities and multiplicities of contexts and situations of the 15 Pacific countries covered in the paper. As well, if there are any contradictions or ambivalences, this will demonstrate that there are no easy answers to the issues confronting the Pacific region.
1 A paper presented at the international conference on Redesigning Pedagogy: Research, Policy & Practice at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 30th May – 1st June, 2005.
2 Alternatively, the countries can be categorised as Melanesian: Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu; Micronesian: FSM, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru & Palau; and Polynesian: Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Tokelau and Tuvalu.
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Background
The Pacific Region
The 15 Pacific countries occupy a small land area but are sprawled over a vast area of ocean. In total, they cover a little over half a million square kilometres of land, but 19.9 million square kilometres of ocean (i.e., in terms of exclusive economic zones). To illustrate the diversity in land size, Tokelau, the smallest nation, has a land area of 12 square kilometres; Nauru occupies 21; RMI 181; Tonga 688; Fiji 18,272 in comparison to PNG’s 462,000. The countries range from atolls such as RMI and Kiribati, where fresh water and vegetation are scarce and natural resources severely limited, to the better endowed volcanic islands of the bigger Melanesian countries.
In terms of population size, a little over two million people live in 14 of the countries. Add PNG’s 5.6 million and the total population of the region is close to 8 million. By and large, the majority of people in each country are indigenous3. The Pacific is the most linguistically complex region in the world with one fifth of the world’s languages. More than 1,000 distinct languages are spoken by less than 8 million people with multilingualism and bilingualism the norm. The dominant religion in the Pacific is Christianity.
Agriculture, fisheries and/or tourism are the mainstays of many Pacific economies. In a cut- throat globalising capitalist world where economic concerns are paramount, the Pacific islands are extremely vulnerable as a consequence of their smallness. They are also vulnerable to the vagaries of nature where cyclones and hurricanes continue to cause untold damage to their social and economic well-being. For instance, the Cook Islands is still recovering from five destructive cyclones that attacked within three weeks of each other in early 2005.
Small island states face many challenges including development and over-concentration, open economies and overdependence, high public expenditure, distance costs, dominance of public employment, problems of finance, aid dependency, and patronage and nepotism (Bacchus & Brock, 1987: 2-4). Small island states are at the mercy of ‘developed’ nations in terms of economic aid, exploitation by multinational corporations and the vagaries of the global economic system.
These countries, because of their colonial legacy, also face the deeper challenge of decolonising colonial mindsets inherited from centuries of colonial subjugation, oppression and power play. Stepping out of the colonial box into postcolonial4 conditions must start where it counts most – in the mind. A psychological/mental deconstruction must take place – an interrogation of the colonial past and postcolonial present in order to renegotiate the way to a more effective syncretism of local and global worlds. Pacific Islanders need to find a constructive and practical way to “deconstruct the concept, the authority and assumed primacy of the West” (Young, 1990). They must analyse the insidious effects of their colonial past not with the purpose of criticising or blaming the colonisers but with the goal of transforming their mindsets in order to reclaim or restore the best of what was lost, subverted or ignored in the colonial era and its aftermath.
3 The exception is Fiji where a little less than half of the population is Indo-Fijian.
4 The term ‘postcolonial’ is a hotly contested one and much theorizing revolves around it. A useful definition is given by Leela Gandhi (1998: 4) who defines postcolonialism as “a theoretical resistance to the mystifying amnesia of the colonial aftermath. It is a disciplinary project devoted to the academic task of revisiting, remembering and, crucially, interrogating the colonial past”.
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The Colonial Legacy
With the exception of Tonga, the Pacific region has been colonised by various ‘western’ countries over the last three centuries. The primary instruments of control of colonised subjects were (and still are) written history (texts), education and language. Colonial practices – including the historical, imaginative, material, institutional and discursive – have significantly transformed Pacific ways of knowing, being and doing. The ideological, political, economic and social structures currently in place today are manifestations and hybrid versions of the colonial project. Colonial ways of knowing and doing, together with ‘western’ values, attitudes and cultural practices, permeate the lived experiences of the colonised to such an extent that they have become part of the postcolonial landscape. At the point of decolonisation, if there is no deliberate effort to resist, overthrow, even transform these colonial legacies, then inherited structures and systems will become normative and hegemonic fixtures of national life.
Because every education system is shaped by its national history and socio-cultural, political and economic contexts, the education systems in the Pacific region are manifestations of their colonial histories. For instance, the educational structures in Fiji are modelled on the British system. Similarly, Palau, RMI and FSM continue to maintain strong ties with the United States of America; the Cook Islands, Tokelau and Niue have close ties with New Zealand; while Vanuatu faces the challenge of dual Anglophone and Francophone systems. The curricula, teaching methods, assessment and evaluation methods, languages of instruction, administration and management models, and organisational cultures of schooling in the Pacific continue in hegemonic forms, usually closely resembling those in place during the old colonial days.
It is not hard to understand why colonial practices, processes, structures and ways of knowing and doing continued in hegemonic ways after decolonisation. Even when countries attained political nationhood as independent states, the colonising impact continued in two ways: first, through the processes associated with neocolonialism, and second through the influence of local middle-class elites, described by Fanon (1967: 36) as vigilant sentinels who are ever ready to defend “the essential qualities of the West”. These guards of things western are usually the educated locals who after independence continue to protect and maintain systems and structures inherited from their colonial ‘masters’. An example of this is the continuing practice of valuing and elevating English in school, and in the home, above the mother tongue.
Neocolonialism has been defined as “the highest stage of colonialism” where a politically independent nation that was under colonial rule continues to be bound, whether voluntarily or through necessity, to a European or American society, or to a western derivative society such as New Zealand or Australia. It can range from the open distribution of foreign textbooks to the more subtle use of foreign advisers on matters of policy as well as the continuation of foreign administrative models and curricular patterns for schools with very little alteration to the curriculum that was in place before independence (Altbach, 1995: 452).
The most insidious element of neocolonialism is that relatively little change to the education system occurs after former colonies attain political independence (Puamau, 1999: 40). As Ashcroft et al. (1995: 424) put it, “Education is perhaps the most insidious and in some ways the most cryptic of colonialist survivals, older systems now passing, sometimes imperceptibly, into neo-colonial configurations”. In the case of the Pacific, educational apparatuses can be described as hegemonic because once structures such as curriculum assessment and school organisation become entrenched and institutionalised, they have a totalising effect on society. Education deeply saturates “the consciousness of a society” (Williams, 1976: 204) and becomes unquestionably what parents want for their children.
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Impact of Globalisation
Colonialism is an offshoot of globalisation, a process that started in the 16th century with the first big expansion of European capitalism. Western industrial countries have managed to maintain their sovereignty through the process of colonialism where they amassed great wealth and appropriated many resources from their colonies to run their economies. As Albert Memmi (1965: 149) put it, “Colonization is, above all, economic and political exploitation”. After all, capitalism and its worldwide spread through the process of colonialism “instilled in the white men a constant yearning for the material benefits and power which they believed money alone can bring” (Gladwin, 1980: 26-27).
Pacific nations are struggling to keep up with the impact of globalisation, with the rapid increase in cross-border economic, social and technological exchange under conditions of capitalism. In order to survive in an increasingly sophisticated technological world, they need to log onto the information superhighway and keep up with worldwide trends and developments. They must align their development plans to international political, economic and educational conventions and laws. They must play the game of keeping up with trade deficits, and of maintaining national economic systems against the powerful homogenising impact of western cultural practices, the influence of the media and the dictates of market forces.
Educational Aid
Foreign aid, educational or otherwise, can be described as a neocolonial artifact since power relations continue in neocolonial ways. Power and control are maintained primarily through the strings attached to the giving of financial assistance. In almost all cases, aid donors dictate what the countries should do instead of allowing them to decide for themselves how they should utilise the aid. Foreign donors commonly initiate, appraise, assess, plan and impose their value systems, principles and processes on their development partners. “In educational aid projects, a micro level analysis would show that donors often set the agenda for the aid activities, define the terms of reference for consultancies and set the questions for problem identification” (Sanga, 2003).
Foreign aid, described as a “double-edged sword” (Heine and Chutaro, 2003), is such a powerful weapon that no western government is keen to abandon it because it is big business (Gladwin, 1980). In addition, many ‘Third World’ countries carry substantial foreign debt which mostly comes in the form of loans from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, various regional development banks, and agencies of the United Nations. Given that foreign aid and loans are primarily tools of control and economic exploitation, how can small Pacific island states maintain their sovereignty given their economic vulnerability?
The emergent power of multinational and transnational corporations whose income easily outstrips many ‘Third World’ economies (Castells, 1996) can be added to this equation. Castells describes the Pacific dilemma quite aptly when he notes that “countries that are left exclusively to the impulses of market forces, in a world where established power relationships of governments and multinational corporations bend and shape market trends, become extremely vulnerable to volatile financial flows and technological dependency” (Castells, 1996: 89).
Foreign donor agencies have driven many educational reforms in the Pacific region. Reforms over the last three decades at all levels of schooling have centred mainly on curriculum development, assessment, teacher education, and resource development to support curriculum change. While a critique of development assistance shows that donor countries benefit most from the aid relationship (see for example Nabobo, 2003; Puamau, 2005b) the benefits of educational aid for recipient countries must be acknowledged. For example, teacher training
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assistance has seen capacity building of a significant number of lecturers. Expensive infrastructure such as classrooms, lecture rooms, hostels, libraries and toilet blocks has been provided through aid-funded projects. Additionally, many locals have been employed in aid projects that have included capacity building of local professional and management staff who then become highly marketable on the international stage. Moreover, scholarship programmes have enabled many Pacific Islanders to obtain a tertiary education, including postgraduate degrees. Without development assistance, it is highly unlikely that small island states could have afforded these expenditures given their small national budgets.
However research in the Pacific region indicates that despite reforms in training teachers, revising curricula, providing resources, upgrading facilities, mobilising community support, and improving leadership and school management, quality education still is not being achieved. The same issues that faced Pacific education three decades ago in terms of quality, access, equity, relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and student achievement continue to plague Pacific nations. And despite Pacific governments and donor agencies investing heavily in the education sector, the learning outcomes for most students have not improved. In fact, many students continue to fail in schooling at alarming rates.
Very little attention has been given to interrogating curriculum, school culture, structure and organisation, including the values that underpin evaluation and assessment of learning. The “values and belief systems that underpin the behaviours and actions of individuals and institutions, and the structures and processes they create” need to undergo fundamental change (Pene, Taufe’ulungaki & Benson, 2002: 1). The ineffectiveness of Pacific education can be attributed to the “increasing incongruence between the values promoted by formal western schooling, the modern media, economic systems and globalisation on the one hand and those held by Pacific communities on the other”(Pene, Taufe’ulungaki & Benson, 2002: 1).
Rethinking Educational Reform in the Pacific
Given the profound and pervasive psychological repercussions of colonialism and globalisation, and given the increasing pressures to conform to international benchmarks and conditions that come with accepting foreign educational aid, can Pacific people change the ‘colonial mindsets’ that many of them are still trapped within? Is it possible for them to change the philosophies, ideologies, values and structures that currently underpin their educational systems? Do they have the will, the courage, the energy and the resources to transform their education systems into what they perceive to be best for their people and nation? Can they truly own and control the formal education process? Is it possible to have a genuine Pacific vision of education? What shape should the rethinking of educational reform in the Pacific take? What are the parameters that should guide the direction of this rethinking process? Who decides? Whose voice(s) ought to speak and be heard? What place do ‘outsider’ perspectives have in the rethinking of Pacific education? These are some important questions that need to be addressed.
The Rethinking Pacific Education Initiative (RPEI)
In any discussion on the rethinking of Pacific education, it is important to draw attention to a groundbreaking and innovative initiative dreamed up by Pacific educators for Pacific people. The Rethinking Pacific Education Initiative (RPEI) was conceived by three highly qualified academics whose collective ‘insider’ expertise and experience in the field of (Pacific) education and educational aid exceeds one hundred years. Professor Konai Thaman, Dr ‘Ana Taufe’ulungaki and Dr Kabini Sanga began informal conversations about a new approach to supporting educational development through external aid agencies in December 2000 at the launching of the Auckland University Research Unit for Pacific Education (RUPE). After further discussions with the New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID), a
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proposal put together by the three key educators that articulated the core concepts, structure and key components of the initiative were discussed and agreed upon (Sanga & Nally, 2002).
The multiple goals of the RPEI are to:
provide and strengthen leadership in Pacific education at regional and national levels;
work with educators, officials and politicians to achieve the best education possible for
Pacific people, based on the understanding of the critical role education has in
preparing Pacific communities for the future;
encourage Pacific educators to assume responsibility for rethinking their own education
and development agendas;
support research and its publication and dissemination;
provide leadership in establishing networks and strengthening strategic alliances
between donors, educators, government ministers, NGOs, researchers and eduction
practitioners;
facilitate critical assessment of Pacific education by Pacific communities;
develop a new vision for Pacific education by Pacific communities;
foster leadership capacity for education in the Pacific; and
critique the role of donors in supporting education developments in the Pacific.
The leadership and management of RPEI have shifted from Dr Kabini Sanga at the Victoria University of Wellington to Dr ‘Ana Taufe’ulungaki at the University of the South Pacific (USP). The initiative has had many positive outcomes since its inception in 2001:
(i) Regional action
(a) A colloquium was held in April 2001 for a small group of Pacific educators “to identify issues in education, critique Pacific education and explore alternatives that would deliver more effective developments in education in the Pacific” (Sanga and Nally, 2002). The papers presented at the colloquium have been published in a book called Tree of Opportunity: Rethinking Pacific Education edited by Pene et al (2002).
(b) A regional conference on Rethinking Educational Aid in the Pacific was held in Nadi, Fiji in October 2003. This was a landmark conference since the major aid/lending agencies, including NZAID, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the European Union (EU), and the Asia Development Bank (ADB) were also represented along with Pacific educators, academics, government representatives, developmental workers, NGO workers, teachers and tertiary students. A major issue identified in relation to aid relationships was the need for donors and Pacific partners to give priority to improving their relationships towards greater mutuality, openness and trust. Moreover, donors were encouraged to put in place more enabling policies and practices and for Pacific partners to play a more proactive role in the relationship (Sanga and Taufe’ulungaki, 2003). A tangible outcome of this workshop is a recent publication called Re-Thinking Aid Relationships in Pacific Education (2005).
(c) A Rethinking Education in Micronesia conference was held in RMI in October 2004. Two important questions were asked: What do we want our children to learn, and how do we want them to learn it? A Palauan educator who attended the conference said that, as a result of education programmes being driven by overseas consultants and donor agencies, “students will end up in the margin of life because good decisions are not being made about the development of an education system that makes sense to our environment and people” (Johnson, 2004: 1). As noted by Johnson, donor aid has risen in the last two decades in Micronesian countries and many education programmes are increasingly developed and driven by overseas consultants and donor agencies.
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(ii) National action
A Rethinking Vanuatu Education conference was held in October 2002 for the presentation of research papers and discussion of implications. The conference was a direct outcome of a series of workshops to support development of research skills for Vanuatu educators. An important outcome of this conference is the publication of a book called Re-thinking Vanuatu Education Together edited by Sanga et al (2004).
(iii) Regional Research Fund
A fund has been established to build local capacity to enable better informed decision- making. This fund will assist Pacific educators to undertake research, publish and disseminate it, and use it in debates on education and as a basis for policy making.
Voice and Speaking Positions
The issue of voice and speaking positions is one of critical importance in postcolonial discourse. As bell hooks (1989: 9) puts it, “moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited and those who stand and struggle side by side a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes new life and new growth possible”.
The important point to note regarding the RPEI is the emphasis placed on Pacific people deciding for themselves what is best for their communities. The insider perspective is crucial here because of their intimate knowledge and experience, and their collective wisdoms. The related issue of voice is also critical as it emphasises the importance of Pacific educators and communities speaking out of themselves and for themselves. The collective voice therefore of Pacific educators and peoples on issues that are close to their hearts and souls is a poignant resistance to and reclaiming of lost ground ‘stolen’ from them by their colonial past. The issues of representation, power and control will come full circle to Pacific peoples through this process of reclaiming a Pacific vision of education, decided on by Pacific people for Pacific people, so that they can own the process of education and allow healing from the devastating impact of the colonial encounter.
It could be argued that it was the ‘voice’ of the initiators of the RPEI and their successful lobbying at the Pacific Ministers of Education meeting in Auckland 2001, held under the aegis of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), that resulted in the development of the Forum Basic Education Action Plan (FBEAP) and ultimately the birth of the Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of basic Education (the PRIDE Project) in 2004. It was also the ‘voice’ of the Ministers of Education from the Pacific that articulated in a powerful way what it considered to be a Pacific vision for education.
A Pacific Vision for Education
Is it possible to have education systems that are owned by the people of the Pacific? In light of over a century of colonisation, and the current colonial substitutes of globalisation and educational aid, can Pacific educators develop their own distinctively local systems, firmly founded on their local cultures and traditions, and strongly underpinned by indigenous value systems, philosophies and epistemologies? Is it possible, even desirable, to do so?
The Rethinking Education Colloquium held in Suva, Fiji in 2001 began with the assumption that more than three decades of extensive educational reforms in Pacific education and significant investments by national governments and donor agencies have not succeeded in providing quality human resources needed to achieve national developmental goals. The regional representatives at the Colloquium were concerned that educational reforms have
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focused too narrowly on improving various aspects of the quantification of education with little attention given to questioning the values and assumptions underpinning formal education. As Taufe’ulungaki (2002: 15) puts it, “The failure of education in the Pacific can be attributed to a large degree to the imposition of an alien system designed for western social and cultural contexts, which are underpinned by quite different values.” A continuing interrogation then needs to take place about the values, beliefs, assumptions and ideologies that underpin ‘neo- colonial’ Pacific educational systems.
The Colloquium agreed on the Tree of Opportunity as the most appropriate metaphor for rethinking Pacific education. In this reconceptualisation, education is firmly rooted in the cultures of Pacific societies – in their values, beliefs, histories, worldviews, philosophies, processes and skills, knowledge, arts and crafts, institutions and languages. The Tree of Opportunity:
encapsulates the new vision for Pacific education based on the assumption that the main purpose of education in the Pacific is the survival, transformation and sustainability of Pacific peoples and societies, with its outcomes measured in terms of performance and appropriate behaviour in the multiple context in which they have to live. The primary goal of education, therefore, is to ensure that all Pacific students are successful and that they all become fully participating members of their groups, societies and the global community. (Pene, Taufe’ulungaki & Benson, 2002: 3)
How then can this vision be translated into each of the national education systems of the Pacific? This is where the challenge lies. This is where donor agencies, instead of dictating development terms, should learn from the example of NZAID and RPEI. This is where partnerships between all education stakeholders – educated professionals, civil society organisations, local communities and donors – can be strengthened. This is where partnerships at the regional level can be mobilised. This is where development activities such as the PRIDE Project can have a significant impact.
Rethinking Educational Aid
The Rethinking Educational Aid in the Pacific regional conference, funded by NZAID, held in Fiji in 2003 was significant in that it brought regional practitioners, educators, academics and civil society face to face with donor agencies in an attempt to foster a better understanding of the aid relationship. The keynote addresses by key Pacific educators drew attention to the need for donor and Pacific partners to better understand each other’s needs, expectations and perspectives, and for educational reform to embrace indigenous philosophies. Six country case study reports were commissioned for Fiji, PNG, RMI, Solomon Islands, Samoa and Tonga by the conference conveners on the impact and effectiveness of educational aid. A tangible outcome of this conference is a forthcoming book of papers presented at the conference,
NZAID, through its work with the RPEI programme since 2001, has broken new ground in the way educational aid can be conceived. Sanga and Holland (2004: 1), the key people in this partnership, demonstrate that it is possible for the dominant partner in an aid relationship to “understand and support the initiative, in a hands-off way, allowing Pacific educators to take the lead in exploring education from their particular perspectives”. Other major aid players like AusAID, EU and JICA can learn many lessons from this successful partnership in the dispensation of educational assistance to the Pacific by taking a ‘hands-off’ approach which supports and nurtures Pacific decision-making.
As emphasised above, this NZAID funded case study through the RPEI is unique. However, aside from this initiative, the general pattern is aptly described by Sanga (2003: 48):
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Decades of donor-recipient interactions have not resulted in greater autonomy, strengthened capacities, sustained policy communities and leadership by and for the PICs [Pacific Island Countries]. Instead, donors have continued to control educational agenda, overloaded local institutions with aid activities and preoccupied limited resou
