Bislama in the educational system? Debate around the legitimacy of a creole at school in a post-colonial country

Abstract

Education policy always appears to be controversial, especially in post-colonial nations. In Vanuatu, the dual educative system inherited from the period of colonization has raised many debates. The government of Vanuatu is certainly aware of national educational issues in the school system such as the poor literacy rate and high school fees but finding solutions in a complex multilingual context is difficult. As a sovereign state Vanuatu not only has to articulate its own linguistic problems while dealing with a complex linguistic colonial heritage, but needs to pay specific attention to donors since the country is still economically dependent. As in many others states, Vanuatu has to simultaneously deal with local issues and global interests. Through the example of Vanuatu's national education policy, this article shows how global pressures and national linguistic ideologies can influence decisions made in a post-colonial state.

Keywords:

• education
• language planning
• linguistic ideology
• Bislama
• Vanuatu

Acknowledgements

I would like to warmly thank Christine Jourdan and Marie Salaün for organizing the symposium on educational issues in the Pacific, held in Honolulu (Hawaii) in February 2011, and for allowing me to participate. Also, I wish to thank Kathleen Riley for her very interesting comments during the symposium. And finally a big thank you to Christine Jourdan, Geoffrey White, and Michael Franjieh for their very helpful comments, feedback, and corrections, as well as Richard Baldauf, in the finalization of this article.

Notes

A condominium is a political territory in or over which two or more sovereign powers formally agree to share equally sovereignty and exercise their rights jointly, without dividing it up into ‘national’ zones

In Vanuatu, the education system is composed of 13 levels divided between the primary (class 1 to class 6), college (class 7 to class 10) a high school (class 11 to class 13). The French-speaker education system has an additional class (class 14) which corresponds to the degree to access to university (Diplôme d'Accès aux études universitaires – DAEU), the equivalent of bachelor degree.

The same situation has been observed by Christine Jourdan in Solomon Islands with regards the local pidgin, Pijin Solomon; see Jourdan (2000, 2007).

Vanuatu is known for having the highest linguistic density of the world. According to Darrell Tryon, 105 languages are spoken in Vanuatu for a population of 245,000 habitants (Crowley, 2000).

However, this division between Francophones and Anglophones is no longer valid.

Indeed, Protestants and Anglican pupils were educated in English, whereas Catholics were brought up in French.

Even if the educational systems are still linguistically separate, the presence of bilingual schools (French and English – too rare) should be noted and that there is examination and skills' harmonization occurring from primary to college (harmonization is still going to high school classes).

According to the World Bank database in 2009, 82% of the population above 15 years is able to comprehend, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life (it was 78% in 2004, 69% in 1994 and 53% in 1979) http://data.worldbank.org/country/vanuatu.

“[…] la langue n'est plus seulement un moyen de communication, elle devient un moyen d'oppression”.

All quotes (academic references and quotes from interlocutors in the field) were translated by the author.

An international auxiliary language (or interlanguage) is a language meant for communication between people from different nations who do not share a common native language; it is primarily a second language.

Amounts are in Australian Dollar, see the distribution of funding in: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/country/vanuatu/default.cfm

In this article, I use alternatively pidgin and creole, however I focus on the name creole because Bislama has now spread across the islands and ni-Vanuatu learn it at young ages (pre-puberty) so I expect that vernaculars and Bislama are both learned as mother tongue languages.

The Komiti blong Bislama does not exist anymore.

‘We all need to know Maths!’

Many teachers with whom I conducted interviews recognize the value of Bislama in class.

According to Charpentier, Bislama was the mother tongue of 11% of the population.

‘Bislama would have a chance to be written in a standardized way, only if it is taught. However, English speaker's teachers are fiercely opposed to this choice.’