Formal vs. Non-Formal Vernacular Education: The Education Reform in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

A community-based non-formal education movement in Papua New Guinea has led to hundreds of the country's more than 800 languages being used to teach initialliteracy in local preschool and adult education programmes. The central government, with the help of overseas aid donors, has now embarked on a massive reform of the English-only formal education system. The first three years of formal education will be in vernacular languages at newly established Elementary Schools, run by local communities. But there is a great deal of controversy about the feasibility of the reform and its potential effects on the highly successful non-formal vernacular education movement. This paper describes this movement, the proposed reform and the conflicts between them, demonstrating the importance of community support and non-government organisations in educational language planning initiatives.

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