But who asked the parents?

Dear Editor,

In the Daily Post of Monday 10 November, an article titled “Numeracy and literacy kits ‘in bislama’ for all gov’t schools” heralded a major shift in education policy with the potential to condemn a generation of local children to illiteracy. I was left wondering what rights parents have in relation to the education of their children and whether anyone had asked them what they would prefer.

The Education Act No 9 of 2014 states that the principal objects of the Act include:

(c) to expand access to secondary education; and

(d) to eliminate educational disadvantages arising from the gender or ethnicity of a child, or a child’s geographic, economic, social, cultural or other circumstances; and

(e) to assist each child to achieve his or her full educational potential; and

(f) to provide education to children that gives them access to opportunities for training or employment, or further study;

Under Section 6 Language Policy, the Act states that:

(1) In accordance with Article 3(1) of the Constitution, the principal languages of education are English and French.

(2) All students during their primary education are to be taught in either French or English.

I expect that most parents would think these policies are laudable and look forward to them becoming reality.

However, there is a proviso that “The Minister, acting on the advice of the Director General, may determine by Order that one or more specified subjects at a specified school or schools are to be taught to students in the local vernacular or Bislama.”

It seems that the MoE, with advice no doubt from aid funded ‘consultants’, has applied this proviso to determine that children in Years 1 to 3 will now be taught literacy and numeracy in Bislama. The article claims that “The principle that children should be taught in their mother tongue in the first years of their schooling life is universally acknowledged.” A grand statement indeed, but does “universally acknowledged” include parents?

Principles are easily stated but far more difficult to deliver and while they sound wonderful ‘in principle’ they sometimes deliver results that fly in the face of other far more important principles.

Surely it is also a universally acknowledged ‘principle’ that all children in this modern world have a right to an education that provides a reasonable standard of literacy and numeracy? Furthermore, a ‘reasonable standard’ of literacy must be the ability to read and write in one of the languages of the world in which there is a reasonable quantity of written material and which “assists each child to achieve his or her full educational potential” and “gives them access to opportunities for training or employment, or further study”! When these children have learned to read and write in Bislama what exactly are they going to read? Are schools, already poorly resourced in the area of libraries, going to be equipped with a whole range of books in Bislama that are interesting, exciting and informative and encourage the young reader to further explore the world of literature?

Are the remaining years from Year 4 to Year 6 adequate for a child to become sufficiently competent in English or French so that they can read and comprehend a High School text book? That they can undertake research using the internet? Or that they can access what meagre library resources there are available? Or are these children just part of a grand experiment that is setting them up for failure?

In the face of falling levels of both literacy and numeracy in Vanuatu it seems that we have reached for the panic button and, rather than focus on improving the existing system, a whole generation of Ni Van children are about to be condemned to a lifetime of illiteracy and menial, poorly paying jobs.

When these children reach the end of Year 3 it is claimed that they can then transition to reading in either English or French, the two languages that the Education Act states are “the principal languages of education”. However, what extensive research, and more importantly actual results, demonstrates is that children learn languages most readily in their early years. Children are capable of learning to speak two, three and even four languages before starting school! Children in Vanuatu live in a multi lingual environment and demonstrate this ability to learn multiple languages. What they need is assistance to ensure that they can read and write in the language that will best equip them for secondary and tertiary education and eventually a career of their choice.

Bislama is clearly NOT that language. Nor is it a stepping stone to English. The vocabulary is meagre, the grammar is poorly defined, the phonetics variable and the spelling completely arbitrary. Increasingly it is being ‘polluted’ with broken English. One only has to read the Bislama language sections in the local newspapers, listen to the local radio stations or read any of the Bislama language versions of the government’s own policy documents to see the total absence of any degree of standardisation.

So what are children going to learn when they are taught literacy in Bislama? Simply that attention to grammar and spelling are unnecessary. A lesson that will probably undermine their attempts to develop reading and writing fluency in either English or French.

Almost every Ni Van child learns to speak Bislama without formal schooling. No one is about to take away their “mother tongue” as the article interestingly terms it. Parents are the primary educators of their children and they will ensure their children can competently speak in their chosen “mother tongue”, be it Bislama or vernacular. Surely what formal schooling needs to do is partner with parents to equip the child for a lifetime of learning. That means providing them with access to the vast literary resources of the world outside Vanuatu, the competency to use technology to access those resources and the comprehension to understand and apply the lessons those resources provide in an endeavour to improve their life here.

The idea that Ni Van children need a Bislama stepping stone to literacy and numeracy is not supported by the facts. There are a number of quality schools in Vanuatu that equip children with international standards of literacy and numeracy in either English or French. In these schools children are establishing a foundation for reading in Kindergarten and by the end of Class 1 most are competent readers. Parents pay fees to send their children to these schools because somehow these schools manage to do what government schools and vast quantities of aid seemingly cannot.

I would have thought that a good place to start the consideration of what needs to improve in government schools would be to evaluate the methods and results of those schools that are successful and then endeavour to replicate their success. In that way government schools could improve to match the standard that other schools are already achieving. But it is that consultation, with a willingness to learn and a determination to improve, that seems to be an insurmountable step.

In conclusion I would simply say this. Vanuatu’s children are Vanuatu’s future. Do those who are advocating this strategy have enough confidence to start enrolling their children in government schools? If in ten or fifteen years time this policy has been found to be a failure and those children who can’t afford to attend a quality school or be educated overseas are condemned to a lifetime of illiteracy, who will be standing up to take responsibility? Where will those who are advocating this strategy be then? I expect there will only be the parents of these children left wondering what went wrong.

To parents I would put this question – do you want your child to be able to read and write in Bislama or would you prefer English or French? What’s more, did anyone ever ask you what you thought was important?

Deeply Concerned for the Future