Public plans and private aspirations : a study of education policies and the outcomes of schooling in Kiribati, Western Samoa and American Samoa

Abstract

The making of education policy in developing countries has been i nfluenced in recent years by an apparently widespread belief that formal education is in need of reform to make it more relevant to majority needs and national development objectives . Associated with t his belief are assumptions concerning the outcomes of schooling which suggest that formal education, especially academic education, is producing school-leavers who are dissatisfied with rural life; who despise manual labour; who are individualistic (in communalistic societies); who aspire, unrealistically, to white-collar jobs; and who migrate to urban areas as soon as possible after completing their school careers. Such attitudes and aspirations are considered to be unhelpful to overall development efforts and educational planners in many countries (including Kiribati and Western Samoa ) have become interested in the reform of school systems and curricula for the purpose of effecting changes ,in student aspirations and attitudes . The literature of education and development, and some national development plans, suggests a widespread endorsement of the above assumptions concerning the outcomes o f schooling, but very little empirical research has been done to confirm or question either the correctness of these assumptions or the influence of different kinds of schooling on student aspirations and attitudes. This study describes and classifies, a c cording to a s y stem of ' educational linkages', the literature of education in developing countries, in order t o facilitate an understanding of the influences and considerations which impinge on education policy-making. The study also describes the employment and migration realities and the stated aspirations and attitudes of students in a variety of schools in three Pacific contexts : Kiribati, Western Samoa and American Samoa. Methodologically, this study demonstrates the possibility of describing local social and economic situations and of discussing how realistic, or otherwise, stated student aspirations and attitudes might be, through an interplay of qualitative and quantitative data generated by questionnaires; semi-structured interviews with government and business personnel, students and parents; census data and other official records. The study describes how overt separation of schooling from the possibility of qualifying for modern sector employment generated, in the case of the community high schools in Kiribati, a strongly negative public reaction which resulted, in turn, in the abandonment of the community high school experiment . Parental resistance to the introduction of a more 'vocational' curriculum in Western Samoa is also reported . Suggested in the study is the possibility that student aspirations and attitudes are more ambivalent, and less decidedly pro-urban/modern sector, than is usually assumed in the literature. This ambivalence is apparent in the stated attitude s and aspirations of students in a variety of schools (academic, non-academic, rural and urban) and, in turn, this suggests that schooling itself may be less influential than other factors in determining attitudes and aspirations. These other factors include local contextual realities pertaining to family circumstance s, population pressure on outer islands , income possibilities in rural and urban areas, employment/recruitment practices and established work patterns, including temporary migration. The phrase 'dominant reality' is introduced to refer to factors which are outside the development process but which have a strong bearing on local economic realities and are often more likely to affect student aspirations and the other so-called outcomes o f schooling than are reforms of school organization and curricula. None of the curricular innovations discussed in this study has affected the status of subjects (English and mathematics, for example) which are important in terms of qualifying for further training and eventual modern sector employment. The difficulties involved in implementing major curricular reforms are discussed. Within each country, even at different types of school , there was less overall variation between the student responses than there was internationally. The variations between the responses at schools in different countries reflect contrasting dominant realities in each case. Despite this diversity, there was also considerable commonality in assessments of the relative importance of different subjects at school and in stated attitudes towards village and urban life. The stated responses indicated ambivalent and/or pragmatic attitudes towards many questions o f significance to development planners and educators. These attitudes are formed in response to economic, social and political realities and are not amenable to manipulation through curricular reform alone. Show more