Developing A Community Based Vernacular School

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Developing a Community-
based Vernacular School:
A Case Study of the
Maiwala Elementary
School in Papua New
Guinea
Yasuko Nagai
Published online: 29 Mar 2010.
To cite this article: Yasuko Nagai (1999) Developing a Community-based

Vernacular School: A Case Study of the Maiwala Elementary School
in Papua New Guinea, Language and Education, 13:3, 194-206, DOI:
10.1080/09500789908666768
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Developing a Community-based
Vernacular School: A Case Study of the
Maiwala Elementary School in Papua New
1
Guinea
Yasuko Nagai
Summer Institute of Linguistics, 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road, Dallas
TX 75236,USA
In recent years in Papua New Guinea, vernacular education has been promoted in order
to make school more relevant to the everyday life of the local community. Values of
indigenous culture are also recognised in the curriculum. However, expatriates still
have the major role in designing curricula and teaching strategies for the indigenous
people. Although indigenous people have been invited from time to time to contribute
their ideas, they have not been the main curriculum developers. This paper presents a
breakthrough in the transition from the process of the expatriate-centred approach
towards the development of indigenous education. The indigenous people were
encouraged to take an active role in thinking for the establishment of their vernacular
elementary school. Through the process of Participatory Action Research (PAR), they
were empowered to express their innovative ideas and to become responsible for their
decisions, while an expatriateplayed the role of facilitator.As a result, they were able to
syncretise Western values and indigenous values successfully in their school.
Introduction
Papua New Guinea (PNG) lies in the South Pacific, only a few degrees south of
the equator. PNG is a nation of diversity in geography, language and culture.
Each indigenous group from the small (300–900 people) to the large (up to
100,000 people) has developed a distinct way of life and pattern of culture. The
language and cultural characteristics in one community will not necessarily be
repeated in the next community located beyond the next mountain or across the
next river. As culture varies from community to community within PNG, so do
languages. There are more than 860 languages and numerous dialects (Grimes,
1996) in the area of only 462,840 square kilometres (PNG Office of Information,
1980).
Originally indigenous people in PNG had their own informal education. It
aimed at helping each child to learn self-reliance with necessary skills and
knowledge in their own familiar environment (Somare, 1974). Then in the 1870s
and 1880s Western education was introduced to PNG by various missions, and
later reinforced by colonial administrators. As Western education aimed at the
development of indigenous societies to the standard of Western civilisation,
indigenous people were expected to learn European culture and language
(namely, German and English).
Although Western education was meant for good from the Western perspec-
tive, it resulted in ‘disaster’ and ‘destruction’ (Harris, 1990; Verhelst, 1990). In
particular the alienation of children from community life became a main concern
0950-0782/99/03 0194-13 $10.00/0 ©1999 Y. Nagai
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 13, No. 3, 1999
194
Developing a Community-based Vernacular School 195
to both indigenous people and expatriate education officials. In order to solve the
problem, expatriates have made numerous attempts to improve Western educa-
tion for indigenous people by introducing new systems or new curricula.
However, new ideas introduced by outsiders became superficial as indigenous
people lacked understanding. Although in recent years there has been encour-
agement to invite indigenous people to become involved in the process of curric-
ulum design, it has always been expatriates who have played the major role.
In contrast this paper presents a breakthrough in the process of developing a
vernacular elementary school. I, an expatriate literacy consultant, did not invite
the local people to assist me, but I was invited to assist them. Thus, from the
beginning, the local people had the idea of developing their vernacular elemen-
tary school. I had the privilege of encouraging and assisting them, especially
through the spiral process of Participatory Action Research (PAR). This paper
also presents another breakthrough in the typical asymmetrical relationships
between the expatriate researcher and the local indigenous people. By estab-
lishing symmetrical relationships, we were able to share the process and the
outcome of the research project, including all my data, conference papers (Nagai,
1996a, 1996b, 1997a) and thesis (Nagai, 1997b). To make it easier for the local
2
elementary school teachers to read and understand, I endeavoured to present
the study in a ‘reader friendly’ style of writing and print format. This was to
improve the dissatisfaction of the researched nations being treated as subjects of
research (Salmi, 1985).
The Initial Vernacular Education

Since cultural practices are made meaningful with the use of language
(Saussure, 1983, 1990; Bocock, 1992), losing one’s language means losing one’s
culture and identity. The more English was reinforced through the Western
education system, the more the children became alienated from their culture:
Most of what was being taught to us was as foreign as the English language
it was taught in … At no time were we taught about our own people. The
way we lived was considered unimportant … So we grew up in ignorance
of the value of our own community. Our heritage which had been handed
down for generations was being allowed to die. As more children went to
school the dying process became faster and faster. (Giraure, 1976: 62–63)
As the problem grew deeper, indigenous people became aware of the neces-
sity of developing an education system that is more relevant to their society
(Matane, 1968). As a result, in the late 1970s, the idea of vernacular preparatory
3
school was implemented in North Solomons Province. It did not aim to replace
English education, but to ease the children’s transition from the local community
to formal primary schooling in English (Delpit & Kemelfield, 1985). The more the
people saw and heard about the children’s achievements through initial vernac-
ular education, the more widely it spread to other provinces of PNG. Finally, in
the late 1980s, initial vernacular education became the national policy.
Although the idea of initial vernacular education came from the local people
through a bottom-up approach, it was not successful when it was introduced to
other communities by the government through a top-down approach. As
196 Language and Education
English education was imposed on indigenous people in the past, they were
conditioned to believe that English education was the means towards economic
growth and prosperity (Carrier, 1982). Now, the language policy has been turned
around 180 degrees and the people are expected to make an instant change to
follow the new rule. Consequently, this revolutionary change has become
another imposition of an educational change that lacked the local people’s
perspectives.
For example, in the most recent education reform, certain primary schools that
have large numbers of children, such as urban schools in Milne Bay Province,
have been appointed to have vernacular elementary schools attached to them.
Ironically, these urban schools have decided to use English as the medium of
instruction, as the children come from various language backgrounds. As a
consequence, the new education system has defeated the original purpose of
initial vernacular education. Moreover, these new elementary schools have to
operate without teaching materials, trained teachers or even school buildings, as
the local communities lacked understanding of their purpose.
The Development of the Maiwala Elementary School

The Maiwala community is one of the small communities scattered along the
Milne Bay coast. It is 19.5 kilometres from Alotau, the capital of Milne Bay Prov-
ince (see Figure 1). Its population is approximately 550, and the people live in
traditional houses built along the Maiwala River. There is no telephone or power
supply to the community, although a few people own a generator or a solar
4
panel. The Maiwala community has been well known for its war canoes from
ancient days. It is also known as one of the closest-knit and best organised
communities in the province (Loney, 1995). In recent years, the community has
been in focus because of frequent flooding. Additionally, the Maiwala people are
well known for their unique elementary school, which has been designated as the
main centre of elementary school teacher training in the province (Nagai, 1993).
The Maiwala Elementary School originally began as a vernacular preparatory
school, when R, an ex-primary school teacher, caught on to the idea of initial
vernacular education in late 1989. R had herself, as a child, experienced how diffi-
cult it was to learn in English from the beginning of schooling. She had also expe-
rienced, as a teacher, how difficult it was to teach children in English. In addition
she was convinced the school curriculum was irrelevant to the everyday life of
the local community, and was deeply concerned about the alienation of children
and the loss of the Maiwala culture and language.
Almost at the same time I was transferred from the Northern Territory of
Australia to PNG by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). I was assigned to
the Milne Bay Province as a regional literacy consultant to assist the local Depart-
ment of Education with the recent promotion of initial vernacular education. The
non-formal education officer wanted to begin a couple of vernacular preparatory
schools near Alotau. His intention was to show to the visitors how the vernacular
education policy was implemented in the province. He sent me to two communi-
ties (i.e. Labe and Watunou) close to Alotau to consult with the key people.
Although the people were not opposed to the idea of initial vernacular educa-
Figure 1 Maiwala community in Milne Bay Province, PNG
tion, they did not seem to be convinced of its necessity. They nodded passively to
the idea, but were not inspired to be actively involved in its development.
The education officer did not count on the Maiwala community, as it was a
little further away from Alotau. However, R in the Maiwala community heard
about the promotion and came to see the officer in Alotau. Although the officer
did not allocate any funding for the Maiwala community, he was pleased to hear
about the interest of the Maiwala community. He advised R to seek my assistance
for teacher training and materials production in order to begin their school.
When R came to visit me with another Maiwala lady, I showed them a ‘Big Book’
5
we had made in the Labe community. Big Books are attractive chart-size books
which are large enough to be seen by the whole class at once (Nagai, 1990). They
are designed so that the whole class can be involved in sharing reading together
in an informal atmosphere (Holdaway, 1979). This process of learning through
observation and imitation is very similar to the informal teaching and learning in
the Maiwala community.
When I briefly read the Big Book, inviting them to join me in reading, they said
with amazement, ‘That’s the way we teach children at home!’ Becoming very
excited and wishing to make similar books in the Maiwala language, the commu-
nity invited me to assist them in their materials production and teacher training
workshops. During the first workshop, I noticed that the Maiwala people were
expecting me to tell them what to do. I confessed that I could not write stories for
them, as I was new to their culture. Hence through the process of PAR, I encour-
aged them to be actively involved in creating their own stories. PAR is ‘a

powerful strategy to advance both science and practice’ (Whyte, 1991: 7) by
involving members of the research community as co-researchers throughout the
research process. At first, however, the teachers were perplexed by being given
opportunities to think and express their thoughts as co-researchers. They were
used to being told what they should do.
In order to break down the asymmetrical relationships between the researcher
and the researched, I decided to place myself on the same status as the local
people rather than to expect them to change their perspectives. When I asked the
teachers if I could live with different families in the community, they were
worried about the living conditions in the community. However, the people
became increasingly at ease by seeing me living there. As a result, a total of 11
different families took turns letting me live with them over a period of eight
months. Every time I moved to the next family, I explained to the new host or
hostess that I wanted to learn to speak Maiwala and do the things they did in
everyday life, and to understand how parents teach, assess and evaluate their
children.
I also said that I would write stories about the family on index cards (7.5 cm x
12.5 cm) and would ask him or her to check for accuracy. I also assured him or her
that I would not show the stories about their family to anyone else. By asking
them to check my data, I placed myself in the position of learner. At first the host
or hostess just said ‘OK’, after reading my data. However, eventually, he or she
began to comment on certain points or correct my misunderstanding on certain
events, or my misspelling of Maiwala phrases. This interaction with the indi-
vidual members of the community helped me to build close relationships with
6
them as co-researchers regardless of their educational background.
By seeing my struggles in learning, teachers began to understand that I was an
inferior learner in their community. Gradually I was able to establish symmet-
rical relationships with the Maiwala people for ‘joint problem-solving and posi-
tive social change’ (Schensul & Schensul, 1992: 163). Indeed, PAR is an
experiential methodology that contributes to ‘the acquisition of serious and reli-
able knowledge upon which to construct power, or countervailing power, for the
poor, oppressed and exploited groups and social classes — the grassroots — and
for their authentic organisations and movements’ (Fals-Borda, 1991: 3).
We also shared the ownership of the research enterprise through commu-
7
nity-based learning with reflective dialogue and collaborative investigation
(Maclure & Bassey, 1991). By sharing my life with the local people, I was able to
deepen my relationships with individual members of the community. I avoided
meeting with numerous people together to discuss any particular agenda, such
as the re-establishment of Maiwala Preparatory School. Rather, while building
close relationships with them, I informally interviewed them individually in
order to uncover their real thoughts and feelings. This arrangement of communi-
cating with individuals was based on my knowledge of the local custom of
respect in a public meeting. In the Maiwala culture nobody would oppose a
person who is older or who holds a respected position.
By encouraging the local people to play the major role in preparing their
vernacular school, I played the role of facilitator. As a result, the local people
were able to search through their legends and recall their childhood experiences
in order to find more suitable stories for the vernacular school children. As they
thought of their childhood dreams and fantasies in their familiar local context,
their ideas were put into writing. It was hard work thinking, writing, editing and
illustrating, especially because it was the first time in history that the Maiwala
8
language had been written down. By the end of the workshops, 40 Big Books had
been made using butcher’s paper for the inner pages and sections from large
cardboard boxes for covers. They were not stapled together as staples rust in the
tropical weather, but were sewn together with fishing line and covered by clear
plastic bags that had held shirts at the local stores in Alotau.
Throughout the process of thinking and writing stories, a school curriculum
was also developed by the local people. In the past, expatriates had tried to
develop a culturally more relevant curriculum for the indigenous people.
However, it was the Maiwala people who played the major role of developing
their own curriculum. While producing materials, those who wished to become
teachers were also able to experiment in reading together among themselves as
well as with the children who had been observing the process of materials
production through the windows. As a result, the curriculum was developed in
the naturally relevant context of the local community, and the teachers were
trained in a familiar everyday context by using familiar materials produced by
themselves. Later when the Maiwala Preparatory School began to operate, their
materials and curriculum were adopted by the PNG National Department of
Education (NDOE). A teachers’ in-service package was also produced (NDOE,
1993) with an accompanying video programme from the Maiwala Preparatory
School (NDOE, 1994).
Despite the above achievements, however, the Maiwala Preparatory School
was unrecognised in the most recent education reform and was not upgraded as
9
a part of elementary school. It was simply because the Maiwala Primary School
did not have sufficient numbers of children for the establishment of a three-year
elementary school. Teachers of the newly appointed elementary schools are paid
by the government, since they are a part of the government education system.
This discouraged many vernacular preparatory school teachers, including the
Maiwala teachers, who were not adequately paid by their community. In the
10
Papuan region, there has been an idea that church related work was voluntary,
and only in recent years have pastors begun to be paid salaries. Since Maiwala
Preparatory School was assisted by the church, teaching was considered volun-
tary work. However, teaching at school or workshops meant that the teachers’
gardens were not looked after as well as they had been when they were at home.
Although gardening is a weekend hobby in industrial societies, it is an essential
part of life in the Maiwala community. Gardening depends on the weather.
Because the weather is unpredictable, the school teachers cannot always go to
their gardens on Saturdays. The teachers felt it was unfair to continue to teach at
school without being able to feed their family adequately.
The Maiwala Preparatory School was closed down for the year of 1995. The
teachers became bitter and felt hopeless. When I arrived back at Maiwala for the
first part of my fieldwork (Nagai, 1997b), many community members
complained about the closing down of the preparatory school, blaming the
problem on the teachers’ desire to receive wages. However, as I stayed in the
preparatory school children’s homes, and had dialogue with the individual
teachers, it became clear that it was not only the teachers but also the children
who did not want to continue schooling. It also became clear that the main
problem was neither the teachers nor the children, but the formal school system
that did not allow multiple grade teaching. Since the number of children in the
same age group has been less than 20, the intake of Grade 1 at the Maiwala
Primary School had been every alternate year until 1995. As a result, this biennial
intake made the children repeat preparatory school in the year when there was
no intake. Thus, those who had already attended both pre-school class and
preparatory class did not want to repeat it three times. Although there were
enough children in Gabugabuna, the nearby community, the Catholic parents
did not want to send their children to the Maiwala Primary School which is a
Kwato mission school. After much dialogue, some of the vernacular school
teachers urged me to call a meeting with the councillor and the key people in the
community, towards the end of the first fieldwork. Heavy rain in the afternoon
delayed the meeting by a couple of hours. First of all R explained about how they
were now feeling. Then they discussed the future of Maiwala Preparatory
School. I also encouraged them and said, ‘Look, you have demonstrated your
excellence in many ways, such as by your war canoes and prep [preparatory]
school. Now, you can do one more thing. What about beginning your own
community-based elementary school? If you just wait for the government to
recognise you, you will wait forever. But if you show them what you can do, they
will recognise you’. Then the councillor said, ‘Yasuko, what you said is true. It’s
time for us to do it again’. He then promised to get the community to raise K40
11
per month to pay all the three teachers.
Now the teachers’ negative attitude towards the community’s financial
support was reversed. Those who were present at the meeting were pleased to
know that I had reminded the local Department of Education about the excel-
lence of the Maiwala teachers. Everyone in the meeting was encouraged and
excited about the idea of the proposed unique elementary school. They were also
encouraged by the news that the local Department of Education had invited R to
12
teach literacy awareness in the forthcoming elementary school teacher training
workshop in January 1996. Thus, through my encouragement, the teachers
decided to reopen their school as an elementary school without the govern-
ment’s assistance.
When the news of the new Maiwala Elementary School spread to nearby
communities, other teachers wished to come to learn from the Maiwala teachers.
The local Department of Education also paid attention to the efforts of the
Maiwala community, and organised a one-day workshop at the Maiwala
Elementary School. As a result of the workshop, the local Department of Educa-
tion decided to make the Maiwala Elementary School a demonstration school for
educating elementary school teachers in Milne Bay Province. Nevertheless, it
took almost 12 months until the school was registered as a formal elementary
school and the teachers were placed on the Government payroll. During this
period of waiting, the community continued to pay the teachers.
The Maintenance of the Maiwala Language and Appropriate

Behaviour
Although some other elementary schools in Alotau area have defeated the
original purpose of vernacular education by using the English language, the
Maiwala Elementary School teachers strive to maintain their culture and
language. The maintenance process, however, is not just a revival of traditional
customs, but the creation of a new culture by syncretising indigenous values
with Western values. During this process, the Maiwala Elementary School
teachers are encouraged to weigh up the values between indigenous culture and
Western culture in order to determine the most appropriate solutions. They
subtract from or add to the two in order to construct and reconstruct a new
culture on the basis of their ‘rich and ancient past’ (Narakobi, 1990).
For example, traditionally a Maiwala word, teinani was used for several occa-
sions, such as a greeting at various times of the day. However, it has been
replaced by English phrases taught at primary schooling, such as ‘Good morn-
ing’ or ‘Good evening’. Moreover, the people shortened it to ‘Goody’ placing the
stress in the beginning according to the stress patterns of the Maiwala language.
In order to encourage children to speak Maiwala, the elementary school teachers
have invented equivalent Maiwala phrases, such as malatomtom ahiahina (Good
morning) and waguvala ahiahina (good evening). It was solely the Maiwala
elementary school teachers’ decision to use the direct translation of English
greetings. However, knowing that I am a literacy consultant and teacher, many
adults and children tried to greet me with malatomtom ahiahina, etc. These phrases
are quite a mouthful to say:
One morning F brought some food to her daughter’s home where I was
staying. As soon as she saw me, she said,
‘Goody morning! Oo! Malatomtom ahiahina!’
[good morning oops morning good-good-one]
(Good morning! Oops! Good morning — in Maiwala.)
On other occasions among themselves, they preferred to use ‘Goody
morning!’ or ‘Goody!‘ During the first part of my fieldwork in 1995 when I greeted
the children who were walking to school with malatomtom ahiahina, many of them
used to giggle and said nothing. However, when I greeted the children on their
way to school with teinani, they immediately said teinani without hesitation.
When they were passing by me, I said to them, ‘Uuu!‘ They responded, ‘Uuu!‘
without hesitation. Contrastively during the second part of my fieldwork in
1996, I noticed that many people became more conscious of using the new
Maiwala phrases, and most people greeted each other in Maiwala without hesi-
tation. It seemed that the people were getting used to using the new Maiwala
phrases. When I returned to Maiwala in early 1998, the families with whom I
stayed became even more conscious of using Maiwala phrases. By this time, the
teachers were fully convinced that the maintenance of the Maiwala language was
a joint effort of the school and the community.
Traditionally, the word teinani was also used on other occasions, such as to say
‘Thank you’, ‘I am sorry’ and ‘excuse me’. In recent years, however, many
parents grieve for the loss of the original meaning of the word, teinanio as well as
the actual manners that were associated with it:
One day when everyone was eating, B (ten years old) marched into the
middle of the room with wet feet. Her mother said to her,
‘Hei B, egha nanaalena’.
[hey B not like that]
(Hey, B, it’s not like that; that’s not what you should do.)
Immediately B said in English, ‘Excuse me, excuse!’ Then she got her towel
from her room and quickly walked through the middle of the room and
went outside. After wiping her feet, she came into the room again. Her
mother, Z was not pleased with B’s manners, as Z has taught her children to
wipe their feet before coming into the house, and not to march in, in front of
others.
This was a rare occasion, as Z’s children are all well-mannered. They usually
say ‘sorry’, ‘excuse me’ and ‘thank you’ appropriately in English. However, Z’s
brother said that saying ‘Excuse!’ is not as polite as saying teinani. In the olden
days, Maiwala people used to bend down and walk in slowly saying teinani.
Women used to hold their skirts around them to keep themselves intact as they
bent over, and slowly walked behind the people. However, nowadays, people
13
often say, ‘Excuse!’, and just march into the middle of the room or walk in front
of other people. In this way, an English phrase has been shortened and used in
the place of a Maiwala phrase. As a result, the original meaning of the Maiwala
phrase has been distorted by the use of the English phrase.
Being well aware of the loss of traditional manners and language shift, the
Maiwala Elementary School teachers placed the highest priority on teaching the
Maiwala language and having it accompanied by appropriate behaviour. They
also recognise that the children’s behavioural problems often indicate existing
problems at home. In order to assist such children, the elementary school
teachers visit parents casually on their way to or from school and have an
informal dialogue with them. On the other hand, they avoid direct confrontation
with the parents but let the children teach their parents from what they have
learned at school. This kind of indirect penetration of a society is quite effective in
introducing change (Beare & Slaughter, 1993).
The Maiwala people also grieve for the loss of a spirit of cooperation in their
traditional feasting. As early missionaries did not recognise the existence of a
spirit of cooperation, they discouraged feasting along with other traditional
practices, such as fighting, killing and dancing (Williams, 1972). Then these
missionaries tried to create a team spirit through the introduction of playing
sports, such as cricket. Ironically cricket has become the obsession of many
Maiwala men. During the cricket season, most people go to the cricket ground
near the church in order to play or watch cricket every Saturday, instead of going
to their gardens. Z says that cricket has spoiled the life of many Maiwala people.
U also said that she was not interested in cricket at all, although her husband was
14
the chairman of the Maiwala Cricket Association. These women usually go to
their gardens rather than watch the men play cricket. Thus, cricket has affected
the whole community life. It preoccupies the indigenous people’s valuable day
for teaching their children gardening and fishing. In other words, an introduced
change based on a Western perspective has failed to meet the needs of the indige-
nous people, but instead has created unexpected problems.
A spirit of cooperation has been ignored in the formal education system. As
teaching has usually proceeded according to the provided syllabus, the children
who needed extra help were left behind. As a consequence, this kind of teaching
created individualism and competition, especially through testing for the
purpose of ranking. Z said that the same children who are ranked as bright are
rewarded every year and the others all miss out. V also said that the same chil-
dren who received rewards at school also received rewards at Sunday School.
Because of the negative effects of rewarding, both teachers decided not to give
rewards to the children at the end of the school year. As the rewarding system
relates to ranking children, the Maiwala Elementary School teachers do not see it
as a benefit in the process of teaching and learning. Rather, they have discovered
that it is more appropriate to observe children continuously in order to assist
them effectively. These teachers also pay attention to the children’s behaviour
that might affect their learning.
For example, at the community gathering for the celebration of winning the
canoe race, many children could not eat half of the food piled up on their plates,
as the ladies in charge at the table had served large amounts for them. Later, after
another community gathering, many young people who did not help to prepare
for the gathering came to devour the food. One day the Maiwala Elementary
School teachers talked about the children’s manners. They said that children
could be taught how to serve food on the table as well as how to serve modest
amounts on their plates. Z suggested that the children’s lunch could be served on
the table and each child could learn to serve a modest amount of food on his or
her plate at school.
In this way, the Maiwala Elementary School teachers tried to reinforce appro-
priate manners that should be taught by the parents at home. These teachers
often talked about the identified areas of need for teaching and shared their ideas
as to how they could best assist children in these areas. They also shared mutual
understanding of the purpose of initial vernacular education with the parents. In
order to develop culturally more appropriate classroom practices, they weighed
up the values between the two cultures. Therefore they teach not only Western
skills and knowledge, such as literacy and numeracy, but also indigenous
language, manners and behaviour appropriate to their culture. Thus they
continue to assist children to develop their potential in the meaningful context of
the community.
Conclusion
In the past, expatriates have tried to develop a culturally more relevant curric-
ulum for the indigenous people. However, the expatriates’ perspectives have not
always been the same as the indigenous people’s perspectives. Through the
example of the Maiwala Elementary School, it is clear that culturally more appro-
priate classroom practices are best developed by the indigenous teachers them-
selves. The process of planning and implementing innovative ideas that
emerged from among themselves is quite effective, as the teachers can under-
stand the need for a change, and feel responsible for the change. However, this
bottom-up approach to an educational change has not been practised widely in
PNG.
It seems that the indigenous people have not been given enough opportunities
to be actively involved in the process of change. If an opportunity is given to
indigenous people, they have the capability of being responsible for planning
and implementing an educational change. In the case of the Maiwala commu-
nity, an expatriate literacy consultant and the local people shared equal status.
While the Maiwala Elementary School teachers took the major role in the change,
I played the role of facilitator. We worked together through symmetrical rela-
tionships. As a result, more culturally appropriate classroom practices were
tailored to the Maiwala Elementary School from the perspectives of the commu-
nity members.
Shared ownership of the research was accomplished further by letting the
Maiwala Elementary School teachers check all my data, conference papers and
PhD thesis. The elementary school teachers were fully convinced of their rela-
tionship with me as co-researchers. They made comments on my papers and
thesis freely in relation to their own experiences. They said, ‘In the past, expatri-
ates used to look down on us and call us ‘natives’. But now we know that you
have respected us and treated us as equal to you’. Now, at the conclusion of this
study, I can rejoice with the community members about the successful outcomes
of the educational changes that have emerged.
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Yasuko Nagai, Summer Insti-
tute of Linguistics, 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road, Dallas TX 75236, USA
(yasukonagai@compuserve.com).
Notes
1. This paper was originally presented at the Third UNESCO-ACEID (Asia-Pacific Cen-
tre for Educational Innovation for Development) International Conference in
Bangkok, Thailand, December 1997.
2. They were leavers at Grade 8 and 9, and were trained through informal teacher train-
ing workshops and inservice courses.
3. Vernacular preparatory schools are community-based schools for children prior to
their entry to Grade 1 of the primary school. The main purpose of the vernacular pre-
paratory schools is to teach literacy and basic numeracy in the local vernacular, as it is
too difficult for the children to learn in a foreign language such as English from the be-
ginning of Grade 1.
4. I did not want to introduce anything new to the community. However, my solar panel
brought much benefit to the families with whom I stayed. Since then, some families
saved money to buy their own solar panels.
5. There was no problem for them to understand the story, as the language spoken in the
Labe community was closely related to Maiwala.
6. Many of my hosts and hostesses were school leavers at Grade 6.
7. Senge (1990) differentiates ‘dialogue’ from ‘discussion’. He defines ‘dialogue’ as from
the Greek ‘dia-logos’ meaning ‘a free-flowing of meaning through a group, allowing
the group to discover insights not attainable individually’ (Senge, 1990: 10). He also
defines ‘discussion’ that has ‘its roots with “percussion and concussion”, literally a
heaving of ideas back and forth in a winner-takes-all competitions’ (Senge, 1990: 10).
8. Although the glottal stop occurs frequently in the Maiwala language, the native
speakers did not want to mark it with an apostrophe. They also wanted to use a di-
graph (‘gh’) for the velar fricative sound rather than a single letter such as ‘x’. I
respected the Maiwala people for their ideas, as they are the owners of the language.
However, they appreciated my help in determining word breaks and appropriate
punctuation marks (Nagai, 1993).
9. In the most recent education reform, some preparatory schools are included in the for-
mal education system that aims to have three years of initial vernacular education (i.e.
preparatory, Grade 1 and Grade 2).
10. Particularly the Kwato mission sought to produce ‘self-supporting industrial evange-
lists’ (Williams, 1972: 40). The name Kwato comes from the name of the island where
Charles Abel began his mission in 1891 as a member of the London Missionary Society
(LMS).
11. This salary is far smaller than the salary (40 kina per fortnight) for the teachers of the
government elementary schools.
12. I was the one being invited first. However, I suggested to them to consider R instead,
especially because I would not be in PNG during the proposed workshop.
13. Most people in the Alotau area say ‘Excuse!’ instead of ‘Excuse me’.
14. There is a cricket association in the Maiwala community whose population is only
about 550. There are five cricket teams and the membership fee is K100 per team.
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Developing A Community Based Vernacular School

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Language and Education

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The Initial Vernacular Education

The Development of the Maiwala Elementary School

Figure 1 Maiwala community in Milne Bay Province, PNG

aged them to be actively involved in creating their own stories. PAR is ‘a

The Maintenance of the Maiwala Language and Appropriate

from the south. International Journal of Educational Development 5 (3), 223–226.

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