Is it Aulua or Education Dressed up in Kastom?: A Report on the Ongoing Negotiation of Literacy and Identity in a Ni Vanuatu2 Community

Abstract

This paper reports on two critical incidents in the progress towards implementing a vernacular language programme in the village school at Aulua, Malakula, in Vanuatu. In stage one of the fieldwork, (2000–1) an orthography was created by a committee. An element of the second stage of the project (2004–5) was a workshop to create the primers and reading material for the Class 1 curriculum. In both stages, issues regarding history, identity and locality were raised. In the first phase, the committee managed to weave these elements into the orthography. In the second, while subject matter for materials met local requirements of exploring local customs and histories, local discourse patterns of narratives were absent. This absence can not simply be justified by the transference of oral performance to written discourse.

Keywords:

• Aulua
• literacy
• narrative
• orthography
• Vanuatu
• vernacular education