Foreign aid and inclusive education in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati: a question of ownership

ABSTRACT

This study examines the influence of foreign aid and local ownership in the introduction of inclusive education in Kiribati. The data reported in this paper were collected through interviews with key local stakeholders and these data are part of a larger study. Data were analysed under the major theme of ownership, and were grouped into the four sub-themes of: local responses to inclusive education initiatives; support for inclusive education principles; local attitudes regarding the contribution of Australian Aid; and, sustainability with or without aid support. The results indicate that a positive commitment towards inclusive education is emerging and that Australian Aid provided essential advocacy for children with disabilities in Kiribati through direct management of initiatives by the expatriate administered Kiribati Education Facility. Inclusive education initiatives remain dependent on Australian Aid for direction and sustainability. Sustainability of inclusive education initiatives in Kiribati will depend on continued development of local ownership including community support and commitment by the Government of Kiribati, particularly budgetary support.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• foreign aid
• ownership
• Australian aid
• Kiribati
• Pacific Island nations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rodney Yates’ interest in inclusive education came from a long career in regular and special education as a teacher of students with learning and intellectual disabilities, as a school psychologist, and as a school principal. He has played an active role in inclusive education since 1983, establishing programmes of inclusion and administrating a state-wide programme at the very beginnings of the ‘seeds’ of inclusive education (then called integration) in Australia. Through these experiences he has developed a strong commitment to social justice and inclusive practices. This culminated in volunteer placements in Kiribati as Inclusive Education Teacher Trainer at Kiribati Teachers College in 2013 and as Inclusive Education Advisor at the Maldives Ministry of Education in 2015, both positions funded through the Australian Volunteers for International Development (AVID) programme. In 2016 he returned to Kiribati for two months, planning staff development at the Kiribati School for Children with Special Needs. The interviews for this study were conducted during this time. His PhD doctorate examined the role of Australian Aid in the introduction and sustainability of inclusive education initiatives in the Republic of Kiribati.

Suzanne Carrington is a Professor and Assistant Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. Suzanne’s areas of expertise are in inclusive education, disability, and teacher preparation for inclusive schools. She has engaged in research to inform policy and practice in Australian and international education contexts, more recently extending this research to the South Pacific and Asia. She has broad knowledge of education research, and her publication list provides evidence of extensive collaboration with education, health, and medical research.

Jenna Gillett-Swan is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research focuses on wellbeing, rights, voice, participation, and different ways that each of these aspects intersect with inclusive education. She also specialises in qualitative participatory research methodologies. Recent funded research projects include topics such as: wellbeing matters in and at school; voice inclusive practice; empowering learners; kids rights in schools; equity considerations in pre-service teacher education; and, investigating the impact of youth groups on the community. Jenna has also been delivering inclusive education workshops with a focus on understanding trends and policies for inclusive education within international policy and conventions as part of Australia Award funded short-courses since 2015. As part of these workshop deliveries, she has worked with Award Fellows from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Solomon Islands, East Java, and Tonga, to explore inclusive education in their national contexts from a rights lens.

Hitendra Pillay is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Queensland University of Technology. He has multi-disciplinary background ranging from education to engineering to cognitive science – resulting in a diverse academic research portfolio. He has won many research grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Taiwan National Science Council, Australian Development Research Award Scheme, and published over 125 academic papers and over 100 technical reports for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Australian Aid, and the European Union. Professor Pillay has successfully supervised over 30 PhDs and worked in 25 countries (OECD and developing countries) as either education sector expert or university academic. His understanding of knowledge systems and human cognition privileges him to be innovative and develop complex schemas for cross discipline knowledge creation and associated applications. Drawing on his multi-disciplinary academic research and social sector development work, his current research interest is synthesising the fragmented research agendas into more holistic and cross disciplinary models of knowledge creation, innovation, and global development.

ORCID

Suzanne Carrington http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8944-7674

Notes

1 Now titled Australian Aid.

2 The locally employed donor staff (D) were not coded individually in order to comply with the DFAT condition for the research that ‘the comments made [by the staff interviewed] are not for attribution to DFAT or the individuals’. (DFAT Research Approval Email 24 March 2016).

3 From the researcher’s observations, the participants’ responses in 2016 represented a significant shift from 2013 when inclusive education was a very new and little understood concept.

4 However, it can be argued that the policy reflects international rhetoric of inclusive education rather than a local Kiribati cultural viewpoint (Yates 2018).