REFLECTIONS ON THE STUDY

My career as an education development advisor means that I move into a development project in a country and implement a series of change activities over a relatively short period of time and then, when my tasks are complete, leave, sometimes never to return. As a result I do not often see the longer term impacts of the development work that I have been involved in. The intention of this research was to study a particular situation in some depth and to try to provide myself and my colleagues in Samoa with a coherent picture of the whole span of the reforms from the policy formulation to the completion of the implementation. I hoped that it might result in better informed change in Samoa while also impacting and improving my professional practice.

It has certainly enriched my professional practice and has increased the range of tools at my disposal to analyse education systems and identify issues fundamental to possible improvement.

This research was conducted through part-time study. This makes undertaking research difficult. My profession kept me out of New Zealand for significant periods of time. However, the continuing professional practice allowed me to test the Samoan analysis in a number of other countries. In each case I have seen similar struggles to overcome the history of the education system and to design and implement system reforms.

10.2.1 Evaluation of the approach and methodology

The approach was based on the observation that the 1995-2005 reform activities were making changes to the schools in Samoa but were not actually affecting the underlying pattern of advantage. Shortage of resources and the need for rationing was often advanced as the reason. But this did not seem to be the total explanation. The resourcing patterns did not change even though the economy of Samoa was growing steadily and government budgets

164 were increasing. There had been studies about the structures of the education system in Samoa and the need for change (Asian Development Bank, 2000, 2001, 2009; World Bank, 1991, 1992). However, the policy options that are chosen seem to avoid making change to certain practices. The reasons for the lack of transformation seemed to be located within the way people thought about the education system.

As a result the research approach was to explore the selection of policy options for change and then to determine if there was any real change that resulted from the implementation of those policy options. The approach and methodology adopted proved effective.

The use of Bourdieu’s perspectives as the research basis then moved the focus away from issues of budgets into the issues of the acceptance of certain patterns as normal and acceptable. As a result the exploration of the history of the Samoa education system revealed the origins and growth of the underlying structures.

The examination of the conflict of ideas during the period 1984-1994 revealed that these structures had become embedded and resistant to change. Reform was proposed but only within the existing structures and patterns of advantage.

The use of the Ministry of Educations statistics of participation and achievement over the 1994-2008 period allowed the lack of impact of the reform package on those patterns to be demonstrated.

The data collected from the questionnaires administered to the Ministry of Education managers also revealed the lack of impact on practice. The questionnaires indicated that many of the respondents were well aware of the inequities of the system and desired real change but identified public opinion as the obstacle, once again pointing to the issue of the acceptance of underlying structures.

While the Samoa Ministry of Education held significant amounts of data not all the records were complete. Data for years prior to 2000 were held in hard copy and the format of the records meant connecting individuals and their locations to examination scores was not always consistent.

Linking any individual students from years outside the data collection in 2006 to socio- economic data for comparative purposes also proved to be too difficult. While it is possible to

165 access student names from the records the time and cost necessary to track a reliable sample of the students was prohibitive.

The response to the socio-economic questionnaire was impressive with the majority of the students and their families who received a questionnaire responding.

Because the research design sought to link the socio-economic data from the Year 9 students in 2006 to examination performance in both their Year 8 and Year 12 examinations it was necessary to wait for the Year 12 examination in 2008 for the first students of that cohort to record Year 12 examination results. The results became available in 2009 providing the second data point in the longitudinal study.

10.2.2 Significance of the research

This thesis is only partly about the development and implementation of an education policy in Samoa. It is actually about the inability that we all have to see the obstacles that have become accepted as normal, how hard it is to think of alternatives when we cannot conceive of alternatives, and the limits to change.

While it is a case study of Samoa it is a lesson to all developers and managers of education systems. It is easy, while reading this thesis, to wonder why the people involved in this development could not see the issues that appear to be so obvious and to just make the changes that need to be made. However, that is not the question that readers of this work should ask. Those of us who are educators and managers of education systems should be wondering what it is that we cannot see and therefore cannot change in our own systems. What patterns and processes do we accept as being proper and acceptable and what rationalisations and justifications do we make to maintain or enhance the status quo and to undermine and resist change. How does this limit the policy options that we are prepared to accommodate?

This research is about the difficulty of change in education systems. It is about the acceptance of existing arbitrary patterns as being normal, acceptable and reasonable. The case study used was a particular set of developments in Samoa but similar experiences are common in many other settings.

Change should be motivated by the ideal but the attainment of the ideal may not be possible. Rawls derived his principles of social justice by imagining an original position where the members of a society met and formulated the principles of a just society that shared the goods

166 of cooperative effort in the most just way. Unfortunately, none of us have that opportunity. We can understand Rawls’ position and be motivated by it but we are not in a position of formulating the original position. We enter a society that already has an existing history based on the decisions of others. We face the situation of having to undo the past. This is doubly difficult for societies that have been colonised where the members have to not only deal with on-going effects of the structures from pre-colonial society but to also wrestle with the impact of the social structures resulting from colonisation.

The people of Samoa care about their education system and the educators and managers in the system work very hard to try and make it as effective as possible. They are highly motivated, intelligent and determined and yet some of the transformations that were hoped for were not delivered. In spite of their lack of resources and their small numbers they will continue trying.