Competing Agendas in Indigenous-Language Renewal: Initial Vernacular Education in Vanuatu

Abstract

Vanuatu, being linguistically the world's most complex nation in terms of number of languages per head of population, faces unique linguistic problems. These issues are made more complex by the inheritance of both English and French as official languages of education from the colonial era, and the English-lexifier pidgin / creole Bislama as the national language. Basic mission-based education was conducted originally through the medium of local vernaculars, but as the colonial state moved into education from the 1960s, emphasis shifted to the exclusive use of either English or French in schools. Two decades after independence, Vanuatu is now examining prospects for implementing a program of initial vernacular education in conjunction with a range of other major changes in educational practice. This discussion examines the sometimes conflicting attitudes toward this idea from the various stakeholders, including the parents of children, education officials, francophones and anglophones, expatriates and locals, academic linguists, international advisors, and national politicians. While there is considerable goodwill toward the new policy from a variety of sources, there are sufficient tensions between different groups of stakeholders that success in implementing this policy cannot be ensured.