Education for Development in Context

In this chapter, an overview of the 'education for development' context for each of the two interventions under discussion, Solomon Islands and Tonga, is provided. Although both are island archipelagos in the south-west Pacific, and both fit the definition of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), there are marked differences between them in cultural, educational, and 'development' terms. The chapter takes as a starting point the contention of some comparative educationists that education in any context cannot be understood, and interventions aimed at improvement cannot be effective, if researcher-practitioners are not informed by the development of education within the particular social-historical and political contexts concerned. Accepted is that the interplay of culture and education is central to the operations of systems, schools and classrooms, and that social structures, values and practices shape and enable teaching and learning within a specific context. Improtantly, in tracing the historical development of schooling in each context, the chapter is informed largely by writers indigenous to that country. When the discussion moves to 'education for development' in the post/neo-colonial period, a focus is the aid relationships that continue to shape education policy and practice in context, particularly those between New Zealand and the two countries concerned. Today's system in each country is summarized and the intervention for each country context introduced.