The thesis problem outlined

Having reflected on my experiences as a teacher, with an interest in development, in the Pacific, I now outline the thesis problem in relation to the literature. My research is a coalescing of three main issues, discussed below:

1.2.1 Continuing western centric education

Firstly, there has been a strengthening of the dominant western education paradigm in the Global South, whereby the key function of education is a tool to build human capital; an investment deemed necessary for the economic development of a country. Knowledge of western science, business, commerce and technology, key components of westernisation, are considered to be the gateway to this success (Rist, 2002). Western education as a surreptitious hegemony, directs student aspirations towards western ideologies, values, beliefs and lifestyles (Bacchus, 1997; Karabel & Halsey, 1977; Schultz, 1961).

Development agencies often reinforce this approach by channelling aid towards western style economic growth initiatives, for example, those in the Cook Islands (New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2012). In a world that increasingly promotes

2 _{Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced the Millennium development Goals (MDGs) in 2015}

neoliberalism as the only way forward to lift people out of poverty and provide their basic needs, alternatives to development and alternative development strategies are largely ignored.

Although it can be argued that education has contributed to economic success through a neoliberal development model at the macro level the size and the nature of this impact has been contested in the Global South over the last 30 to 40 years (Fagerlind & Saha, 1983). The benefits of economic growth are often not distributed equitably. Moreover, expected economic growth has not matched the supply of graduates, resulting in unemployment of the educated (Gould, 1993).

Equally concerning, is the suffocating effect western curricula can have on students’ perceptions of the value of their own traditional livelihoods. In a rapidly globalizing world, culture is often dismissed as irrelevant (Esteva & Sachs, 1992; Shiva, 1992). Esteva and Sachs (1992) explain how the discursive practices of development have invented the idea of underdevelopment; this is reinforced in education where students are taught that they live in a so called third world and there is a desperate need to aspire to first world standards. For students, schooling can represent a period of omnipresent indoctrination demeaning the worth of their parents and communities livelihoods and culture.

This narrow focus on a western education denies students the chance to think locally, within their culture, about opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Development

opportunities that might leverage off the resilience of traditional economies and culture are discounted. Curry (2003) believes the assumption that development must be solely based on Eurocentric ideas needs to be questioned. The benefits of a western education are not discounted but they do not have to be at the expense of a better understanding of the continuing importance of indigenous values, culture, beliefs and traditional livelihoods. 1.2.2 Calls to rethink education in response to changing development perceptions The second issue is a head on challenge to western notions of development and education through a resurgent interest in traditional livelihoods, culture and values. Dissatisfaction with the results of mainstream development and education strategies in the Pacific has

increased interest in alternative3 _{development strategies based on Pacific worldviews and}

the need for an indigenous education in this renaissance. Concern has been expressed about the insidious nature of western ideology, prevalent in education curricula, working to erode Pacific culture and blunt Pacific people’s aspirations to define their own

development journeys (Thaman, 1992, 2007). Thaman (1995) describes how Pacific educators are now questioning the values that underpin modern education and development. Taufe‘ulungaki (2002) explains:

The failure of education in the Pacific can be attributed to a large degree to the imposition of an alien system designed for western social and cultural

contexts, which are underpinned by quite different values. (p. 15)

The ineffectiveness of Pacific education is attributed to the “increasing incongruence between the values promoted by formal western schooling ... on the one hand and those held by Pacific communities on the other” (Pene, Taufe’ulungaki, & Benson, 2002, p. 1). Pacific researchers consider that traditional economies and culture remain the core of economic, social and environmental resilience in the Pacific (Maiava, 2001; O'Meara, 1990; Purdie, 1999; Regenvanu, 2009).

Pacific educators and researchers have been united in the call to reject educational imperialism and rethink education in the Pacific (Sanga & Thaman, 2009). They argue Pacific knowledge, thinking and culture should underpin development aspirations in the region. Therefore, education should change to reflect this shift in emphasis (Manu, 2009; Pene et al., 2002; Sanga & Thaman, 2009).

Initial changes have rightly placed an emphasis on Pacific culture and language in the curriculum to strengthen students’ identity as Pacific Islanders. Such change, while obligatory, is only a beginning and in the main, I will argue educational transformation is yet to happen. Instead, a resurgent, dominant western education, building human capital to support western development models and a smaller indigenous education movement promoting language, culture maintenance and a Pacific identity run parallel in what I term a dual curriculum. The issue is a persistent western narrative upholds the belief that culture and traditional livelihoods sit at the antithesis of ‘real’ development. Any attempt to

3 _{Here I use the term alternative in relation to current mainstream development modes. Pacific people do not}

galvanise students’ interest in investigating alternative ways to address development through a cultural lens, has been overlooked.

1.2.3 ESD: Challenging accepted development notions

The third issue underpinning the thesis problem is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) inspired introduction of ESD into the Global South, to support a world that increasingly sees SD as the answer to development (United Nations, 2015b). Whilst ESD sits on the fringes of most Global South curricula, I will argue, in the Pacific context, ESD presents an opportunity for students to rethink development in terms of traditional livelihoods, culture and the ecology of fragile small islands (Sachs, 2013).

The relocation of western centric ESD curricula from the Global North will not be sufficient, as issues of sustainability are not addressed in local culture and context

(UNESCO, 2013). ESD, infiltrated by neoliberal ideology, merely used to justify the need for ongoing technocentric development initiatives, marginalises the ability of Pacific livelihoods and culture to contribute to SD. A further concern is the tendency to present environmental education as ESD. Environmental education programmes that only deliver environmental messages in isolation, fail to challenge dominant anthropocentric thinking. Moreover, the potentially deleterious effects of poorly planned economic development initiatives on fragile ecosystems are not debated holistically.

The key issue becomes how it might be possible to situate learning around ‘real’ culturally responsive and contextually relevant visions of SD, at the local level in the Global South. ESD that incorporates both indigenous and western knowledge to begin fashioning best fit solutions to sustainability.