Overview
The Republic of Vanuatu is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is 1,750 kilometres east of northern Australia, 540 kilometres northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji.
The country lies between latitudes 13°S and 21°S and longitudes 166°E and 171°E and is a Y-shaped archipelago consisting of about 83 relatively small islands of volcanic origin (65 of them inhabited), with about 1,300 kilometres between the most northern and southern islands with a total land area of 12,000 km² set in a sea area of approximately 680,000 km².
The climate is tropical, with about nine months of warm to hot rainy weather and the possibility of cyclones and three to four months of cooler, drier weather characterised by winds from the southeast. Cool between April and September, the days become hotter and more humid starting in October. The daily temperature ranges from 20–32 °C. In 2015, the United Nations University gave Vanuatu the highest natural disaster risk of all the countries it measured.
At the time of my visits, sixty of the islands were inhabited with a population of around 160,000 mainly Melanesians known as ni-Vanuatu. Approximately half of the population were living on the three largest islands, Espiritu Santo, Malakula and Efate and approximately 37, 000 lived in the two most densely populated urban centres, Port Vila the capital on Efate and Luganville on Espiritu Santo. The rest of the population were living in small, remote, primarily coastal villages scattered throughout the remaining islands with limited communication and transportation to the urban centres.
Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people and the first European visit was by a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island, Espíritu Santo, in 1606. Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain, as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies.
In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago, and in 1906, they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through an Anglo–French condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was founded in 1980.
Government and society in Vanuatu tend to divide along linguistic French and English lines. French and English are the official languages, Bislama is the national language and there are over 100 distinct vernacular languages some spoken only by the inhabitants of one village. Education is conducted in both French and English and there are still two quite distinct systems of education.
In September 1998, I went to Vanuatu to join a World Bank mission the objective pf which was to develop, in collaboration with the Department of Education, a master plan to guide the development of the country’s education system until at least the year 2010.
My terms of reference were to assess the existing systems for: school building, construction and repairs at both primary and secondary levels; for land acquisition and for designing schools. In particular, I was to assess whether there were significant differences between schools belonging to the French and English streams.
I was to evaluate existing space standards and any existing designs for primary and secondary schools; determine unit construction and maintenance costs and assess the procurement of school construction, the participation of communities and the private system in general in the school construction process and the system for maintaining school buildings.
I was also to propose modifications in policies, structure and financing arrangements required to achieve better efficiency in the school construction system and for each policy determine its phasing (what kind of policy, to be prepared and adopted by whom, how, by when, etc) and to assist the other members of the mission in determining the investment costs for the physical facilities they eventually propose and the recurrent costs to be generated by these facilities.
As part of the mission, I visited pre-schools, primary schools and secondary schools on Tanna Island. While on Tanna, I was shown around by the deputy education officer on the island who was an Anglophile and of course spoke English but no French. The island’s education officer however was a Francophile and spoke French but no English. Asked how he communicated with his boss, the deputy education officer said that there was not a problem as they both spoke Bismala! Incidently, Tanna is the home of the John Frum movement and the Prince Philip movement and followers of the latter revere the Duke of Edinburgh; very strange!
The main finding of the mission was that the existing education system was failing a large number of Vanuatu’s children. While 93% of primary school age children were enrolled in schools, only approximately 31% of the age group went on to Class 7 at junior secondary school and of these, only 85% finished Class 10. The education of those children who dropped out of school for whatever reason did not help them to fit back into village life and the rural economy.
One of the Mission’s recommendations therefore was that the existing education system was changed in order that the majority of children who would have to return to life in the rural areas, obtained an education that would enable them to do this. Under the proposed new system an increasing number of children would attend Pre-school, all children would have a basic education from Class 1 to Class 8, a minority would go on to Classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 and a smaller number would then go on to Class 13. The proposed new system was to be as follows:
-
Pre-school Age 5 Class 0
-
Community School Age 6-7 Classes 1-2
-
Primary School Age 8-13 Classes 3-8
-
Provincial High School Age 14-18 Classes 9-12
-
Senior High School Age 19 Class 13 (14)
Pre-school and Classes 1 and 2 would become Community Schools supported, run and built to a large extent by small communities. Primary Schools would serve larger villages or groups of villages and would probably be constructed and run by government or other agencies such as churches acting for the government. Provincial High Schools would offer secondary education to children within a Province doing away with, as much as possible, the need to send them to other islands and Senior High Schools would be centres of excellence for the small numbers of children requiring further education.
A draft master plan for education in Vanuatu was prepared by the Mission and my report focused on the main issues that would affect school design, construction and maintenance at pre-school, primary and secondary levels under the new basic education system proposed by the Master Plan. These were: the completion of a comprehensive school map, the establishment of standards for the design of classrooms and other facilities at all levels, the provision of teachers’ housing, clean water and appropriate toilets and correctly sized furniture and the construction, repair, maintenance of school facilities. For details of the mission, the findings and recommendations with regard to the provision of physical facilities, see my September 1998 report.
I do not unfortunately have access to a copy of my report containing photographs and drawings however, photographs of the pre-schools, primary and secondary schools that I visited on Tanna Island are shown below in the photo gallery and my proposals for the design and construction of the various types of schools can be seen here.
I went back to Vanuatu in June 1999 as part of a World Bank mission who were to prepare a second World Bank education project based upon the findings and recommendations of the previous mission.
The Second Education Project was to be a pilot for the introduction of the educational reforms described in the Education Master Plan to the whole country and was to concentrate on improving the quality of learning during the 8 years of basic education. In order to make meaningful savings in the education budget, the number of primary schools needed to be reduced and in the Project districts, primary schools were to be consolidated and the schools that were retained were to be renovated and extended as necessary to take Years 3 - 8 children. Pre-schools were to be established (or if existing were to be renovated) for age 5 children and Community Schools were to be built for Year 1 and 2 children in the villages around the Primary Schools. The construction and maintenance of the Pre-schools and Community Schools was to be the responsibility of the communities.
The main recommendations with regard to the construction of educational facilities were as follows:
Pre-Schools: pre-schools should be constructed and maintained by the village communities using locally available materials. The VSO volunteer or other construction supervisors managing and supervising the main primary schools should assist the village communities in the construction of the pre-schools. Appropriate toilets and dependable clean water supplies should be provided to all pre-schools and the construction supervisors should assist the communities in the construction of these. Furniture and play equipment of an appropriate size should be provided by the communities to the pre-schools and the construction supervisors should assist the communities in making these.
Community Schools: community schools should be constructed and maintained by the village communities using locally available materials. The VSO volunteers or other construction supervisors managing and supervising the main primary schools should assist the village communities in the construction of the community schools. Appropriate toilets and dependable clean water supplies should be provided to all community schools and the construction supervisors should assist the communities in the construction of these. Furniture of an appropriate size should be provided by the communities to the community schools and the construction supervisors should assist the communities in making these.
Primary Schools Years 3 – 8): after the school mapping exercise is complete, decisions should made on the primary schools to be retained after consolidation. The government should carry out any renovation and necessary extension work on the Project Primary Schools with significant community inputs and the communities should be responsible for maintaining the schools when they have been renovated. Technical assistance will be required for the management and supervision of the renovation of the schools and it is proposed that VSO volunteers or other experienced construction supervisors will be used for this work. They will work with local builders on the renovation of the schools. Appropriate toilets and dependable clean water supplies should be provided to all Project schools and the construction supervisors will supervise this work. Adequate furniture of an appropriate size, made if possible locally, should be supplied to all Project schools. See my June 1999 report for further details.
The designs for the classes 1 and 2 community schools, the pre-schools and the multi-purpose rooms to be built at classes 3 – 8 primary schools were further developed and can be seen here.
This could have been a very interesting project as it would have involved the communities in the villages around the project schools in running the schools and in their construction and maintenance. However, the World Bank had been brought in to provide assistance to the Ministry of Education in the development of the Master Plan and in the development of the education project by an Anglophone government and shortly after the Project was finalised and sent to the Ministry for approval, the government fell and a Francophone government took over the running of the country. This government wanted nothing to do with the World Bank and both the Master Plan and the Project were abandoned!
Photo Gallery
