Education for cultural identity: a Fiji case study - Unaisi Nabobo and Jennie Teasdale

Unaisi Nabobo (Fiji)

Qualified as a secondary teacher of English at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. After a successful teaching career, she transferred to the Fiji College of Advanced Education as a Lecturer in Education. She continued her studies at the University of the South Pacific and is now completing an M.A. degree in the field of education with an emphasis on the role of culture.

Jennie Teasdale (Australia)

Has a deep interest in cross-cultural education from a sociological perspective. A major focus of her work has been research, writing and teaching in relation to Aboriginal Australians. She has also been involved as an adviser in several Australian aid programmes in the South Pacific region. She currently teaches part-time at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.

The context

Fiji is an archipelago of some 300 sub-tropical islands in the South Pacific Ocean, supporting a multi-ethnic population of approximately 750,000. Half of this population is comprised of indigenous Fijians, 45% are Fiji Indians, and the remaining balance includes ethnic minorities such as Rotumans, Chinese and part-Europeans (Douglas & Douglas, 1994). The nation is regarded as a very desirable tourist destination: the consistently warm climate is appealing to many winter-bound Westerners; its people are extraordinarily friendly and accommodating; the government sees tourism as its most lucrative and viable industry; and, to visitors, its political uncertainties and struggling post-coup economy are largely invisible.

Over a period of 3 to 4,000 years the indigenous Fijian people developed a unique, closed culture. Visitors were few and would-be invaders from neighbouring islands were quickly repelled by the impressive Fijian warriors. Possessing a stable yet internally volatile culture, Fijian people knew who they were and affirmed their identity. Living in regional clusters, their values focused on communal living, reciprocity, a hierarchical, male-dominated system of chiefs, and an ability to sustain a rich livelihood from lushly vegetated tropical islands and plenteous surrounding seas. Traditional modes of education ensured effective cultural transmission, and the young were able to follow in the footsteps of their elders with confidence. In essence, there were no 'drop-outs' in Fijian society. All children were educated to the level of their capabilities, their rich cultural heritage being perpetuated from generation to generation.

The colonial coming

This security of tenure and lifestyle ended abruptly in 1874 when Fiji was ceded to the United Kingdom in return for the payment of an outstanding American debt. Colonialism came, conquered, and changed forever the Fijian people's world view. A complex, closed culture was suddenly opened and exposed.

The British were also interested in Fiji for the trade potential of the islands: sugar, spices and timber promised opportunities for colonizers. The underlying motivation of the times to civilize and Christianize also added impetus to the colonial endeavour. Deals were struck and deeds signed, although not without some bloody battles and massacres. In a short period of time Fiji's cultural destiny was radically altered while an alien culture, which represented the values of a newly industrialized Great Britain, swept across the two larger and most populated islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu.

The colonial take-over brought both ill and good to the Fijian. Although much of what was lost of pre-colonial tradition would today be regarded as pagan, evil or backward, Fijians believe that the meeting of the two cultures resulted in the loss of many traditional values and customs that were regarded as sacred and that had their deep-seated respect.

Perhaps the most radical change came with the cultivation of sugar cane. British colonizers, specifically Sir Arthur Gordon, the first governor, deemed it unacceptable to disturb traditional Fijian village social organization. This policy of non-intervention led to the importation of cane labourers from the then British colony of India. Indians were lured with promises of a better life in Fiji. While it may have been a better life for some, the long-term affects of dislocation were never anticipated. As usual, the economic dictates of the moment determined an immediate solution that had far-reaching consequences.

The first shipload of 498 indentured Indian labourers arrived on Fiji's shores in 1879 in the vessel The Leonidas. Successive shiploads brought a total of 60,000 Indian labourers. Crowded together on ships, the stringent Indian caste system was irretrievably violated and thus began a process of cultural erosion for the immigrants. In a relatively short space of time, the indentured labourers settled, and succeeded in making the sugar industry viable. Steadily their population increased and by Independence in 1970, having several generations of family behind them, they had recreated and syncretized their own culture in the Fijian context. They farmed, developed very successful local businesses, and became firmly entrenched in Fijian society, knowing no other real homeland.

Education and culture

Prior to the colonial coming, indigenous Fijians had a holistic culture which dictated every aspect of their lives. Education, which was not separated from culture, began at a child's birth and continued uninterrupted until life ended. A Fijian child was born into a family and a clan, each clan had a specific role or duty to perform (as warriors, fishermen or carpenters, for example), and all these roles were interdependent. It was obligatory that all clans played their part so that a village could achieve a comfortable degree of self-sufficiency. Children were given education specific to the role of their clan; they were taught the arts, skills and knowledge of the special duties they were expected to perform. In addition they learned that reciprocity, respect and humility were prime values and thus an integral part of that learning. Though roles were clearly designated, they were not separated or compartmentalized; they merged into the whole. Education and culture flowed together.

With the advent of colonialism came schooling. This Western phenomenon, born out of the industrial revolution, was thought by colonists to be the only right way to set the young on a correct educational pathway, especially if intertwined with the church and its various expressions of Christianity. Thompson (1972, p. 141) writes:

The Fijians, like most pre-literate people, had no very formal system of education before the coming of the missionaries. The Wesleyan Methodists [...] began educational activities among the natives. They reduced the native language to a written form and translated the New Testament. They introduced a system of village schools in which reading and writing the vernacular, arithmetic and religion were taught by village pastors.

Young Fijians were soon subjected to missionary schooling. At times they were coerced into it. Some schools had been established by Indians for their own children but, later on, missionary schools were established for them as well. In both cases the introduced schooling replaced traditional, community-based education.

Indians had a long-established history of literacy and schooling, thus Indian children grasped the teachings of their imported educators with alacrity. In contrast, Fijians, from a traditional culture that depended on oracy rather than literacy, and on learning by observation and doing rather than 'talk and chalk', found schooling foreign and alienating. The colonial teachers pressed on regardless of these difficulties, recognizing neither the languages nor the cultures of the learners. All teaching was carried out in English and focused entirely on Western content, with little consideration for the learners' culture.

By the dawn of the twentieth century, a generation of young Fijians had received a mission school education. They were taught that they lived in a small, remote part of a vast world (Wright, 1986, p. 9), but that there was a way to improve themselves. That way required leaving tradition behind and conforming to the introduced norms of an alien system of teaching and learning.

Schooling gathered pace. The simple one-room mission school located in the village gave way to increasingly larger primary and secondary schools. The first government schools were for the sons of Fijian chiefs, the Vulinitu. These schools reflected the classical, humanist philosophy, where 'the men of gold', as Plato referred to them, were groomed for leadership posts in government. Later, other government schools were established for girls and other less-privileged children, including Indians. Girls and boys were segregated, as were Fijians and Indians. A teacher's college was opened in 1947, and various other tertiary institutions followed. A significant mile-post in Fiji's educational growth was the opening of the University of the South Pacific in 1968. Its initial responsibility was to train secondary teachers, both for Fiji and the wider Pacific region. All educational institutions perpetuated the ethos of Western education; the underlying values of colonial powers, and later neo-colonial powers, were ever present.

Fijians and Fiji Indians, particularly the latter, learned the instrumental value of Western schooling. Parents saw the gathering pace of Western education and the opportunities it offered, and so exhorted, cajoled and even tried to force their children to do well. Success in the schooling system became highly respected. Examinations were a focal point. It was not uncommon for parents and relatives to hold large feasts for children who had done well in some external or qualifying examination. The importance attached to school success quickly relegated cultural learning to the margins of a child's life. Success in examinations became indicative of the quality of one's parents; one's success was said to be the result of a 'proper upbringing', and so parents gained status from academically successful children.

Although schooling per se gathered pace, many would argue that education lost ground. The focus and thrust of schooling was indisputably Western. The sustaining traditional modes of education embedded within the Fijian and Indian cultures dramatically lessened. Thus, the Fijian culture changed, as did that of the Indians. Traditional education played a secondary role because people had little time to give or receive it. Although its values remained in the hearts and minds of the older generations, they had neither the opportunity nor the time to promote it. Only in remote rural areas, such as distant islands or mountain villages, did traditional Fijian education remain relatively intact. Clusters of rural Indian farmers also maintained their mores and cultural customs, thus enabling some Indian children to be educated in traditional ways. Curiously, in the face of such radical change, traditional languages adapted and remained strong with only a tiny minority using English as their preferred or first language.

Background to the case study

Against this contextual background of geographical, historical and social factors, it is useful to construct a picture of the Fijian peoples in the 1990s. In 1987 two political coups had a significant impact on the social fabric of Fijian society and its cultures. An immediate outcome was the re-assertion of the dominance of the indigenous Fijian people. Fiji's membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations was severed in 1987 when it declared itself a republic. Many Fiji Indians saw insurmountable difficulties in this new political climate. Naidu (1988, p. 4), a prominent Fiji Indian academic, described it as the destruction of multi-racial democracy in Fiji. As a consequence, the immediate post-coup period saw the exodus of many qualified Indians.

One of the hardest hit sectors was the schooling system. More and more, untrained senior secondary school graduates were recruited to fill teaching posts in junior secondary schools vacated by migrating teachers. In an urgent attempt to overcome this critical shortage of secondary teachers, the Fiji government worked towards the opening of a college of advanced education whose initial task was to train large numbers of teachers as quickly as possible. With development assistance from Australia, the government opened the Fiji College of Advanced Education in 1992. Professional educators from Australia were employed to work as training counterparts with Fijian and Fiji Indian lecturers who had been selected because of their outstanding record as teachers in the school system.

The core courses of the two-year training programme focused on preparation for teaching. The School of Education within the college was responsible for planning and implementing appropriate courses. Staff agreed that the courses must strive to contextualize the teaching/learning processes, and that all courses must respect and affirm the cultures of the trainees. The major task of integrating culture and learning fell to the two sociologists, the authors of this paper.

Education and culture integrated

In a collaborative effort, we developed a course that focused on both Fiji and the wider South Pacific region, and that encompassed the traditional education of pre-colonial times, the colonial impact, and contemporary educational challenges. The course was called 'Education and society in the South Pacific', and its rationale expressed in the three-phase model presented in Figure 1.

The cultural climate of the college was a microcosm of Fiji society at large. Classes normally consisted of equal numbers of Fiji Indians and indigenous Fijians. The course therefore needed to affirm the cultural differences between the two cultural groups while still recognizing their common bonds. Ultimately trainees needed to be personally affirmed and strengthened in their own cultural identity so that they in turn could become effective agents of cultural renewal in the classroom.

Based on the premise that education is an act of love and therefore meant to uplift, free and bring out the best in people, and at the same time recognizing differences in the human race, the course writers began their journey. Valuable insight was found in the words of the Cook Island's Prime Minister, Sir Geoffrey Henry, when he quoted the old Chinese proverb: 'We cannot know the village where we are going unless we know the village from whence we came' (Henry, 1992, p. 14).

Believing that it is a human right to have a culture and to be identified with it if one so wishes, the authors' objective was to enable each trainee to re-discover and re-affirm their cultural roots, that is to explore the village from whence they came. This was to be the starting point of the programme: 'Every child ought to learn the traditions of the particular human society into which she or he is born', asserted Dr Konai Helu Thaman, distinguished Tongan educator (Helu Thaman, 1992, p. 52).

Reflecting on whence they came, that is, the traditions of the particular society into which they were born, would enable trainees to consider more realistically where they were going and how they might get there. Colin Power, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, claimed that 'a culture will decay if the people are not able to affirm their own destiny'. As key educators of Fiji's immediate future, trainees needed to 'recognize the significance of cultural identity as the living core and driving force of all cultures' (Power, 1992, p. 9)

With these thoughts in mind, a rationale for this course entitled 'Education and society in the South Pacific' became clear. It is expressed in the following three-phase model.

FIGURE 1: Course model for 'Education and society in the South Pacific'

In light of this rationale, the authors themselves felt that they needed to embark on a personal, reflective, cultural journey of self-understanding about the past (phase 1), the present (phase 2) and the future (phase 3), to better facilitate the trainee's understanding of the process. This proved very useful as a role model of cross-cultural understanding for trainees, and added impetus to their commitment to the course.

The methodology of the course became pivotal to its success. An interactive, participatory approach which enabled trainees to have a significant role in their own research and learning was used. We found that trainees in this Fijian context preferred to work collaboratively in groups. We also learned that trainees were more successful in making oral presentations than they were at producing written work. After careful deliberation, a format was decided upon which included a weekly one-hour lecture focusing on contextualized information, followed by a two-hour trainee-managed and controlled workshop based on oral presentations.

The course aims were clear. All trainees who participated in the course would, through a process of praxis:

1. Rediscover and re-affirm their own cultural identity;

2. Be enabled to respect and affirm the cultural identity of the other;

3. Be confident of their own cultural identity as beginning teachers in Fiji's junior secondary schools; and

4. Enable children in schools to recognize their own culture and be proud of it.

The trainees' response

In 1992 approximately eighty trainees were selected from almost 1,500 applicants to undertake the two-year teaching diploma programme. They were chosen according to academic excellence, experience and personal suitability. The majority came from rural Fiji and would return to teach there. A gender balance was struck, with 50% of the trainees coming from the indigenous Fijian population and 50% from the Fiji Indian population. During their first year, trainees underwent intensive academic training in their chosen subject areas, in the English language and in a largely theoretical teacher education programme. They also participated in a brief school-based period of practice teaching. This first year of the programme followed the clinical, Western-based education which the trainees had experienced throughout their school careers.

The authors saw themselves as harbingers of change and while uncertain of how their new approach might be received, they felt sure that the direction they were moving in was appropriate. This was ratified by the Academic Board of the college.

Observations of trainees at this stage showed that they stayed largely in segregated cultural groups during classes, and that clubs and societies revolved around exclusive cultural interests, such as a choir for Fijians, and sports like soccer for Indians and rugby for Fijians. In class, trainees wore Western clothes, spoke exclusively in English, and depended on listening to lectures and reading recommended texts for learning. Assessment was dominated by written examinations which primarily required trainees to reproduce what had been heard in lectures or read in texts. Fijian trainees lagged behind their Indian peers in written performance (Puamau, 1991, p. 5)

In summary, trainees were perpetuating their school performance, because up to this point they had not been given opportunity to explore other means of learning. Culturally, they appeared to lack confidence, preferring to use their first languages, Fijian, Urdu or Hindi, away from the formality of the college. They also preferred to celebrate cultural events quietly. Interaction between Fijians and Indians was minimal and somewhat restrained.

In 1993, trainees, fresh from a holiday break, returned to college with enthusiasm, ready to begin their second and final year of training. The authors introduced 'Education and society in the South Pacific' with the following visual cue, an illustration drawn by the college's lecturer in art, Ranbir Singh (see Frontispiece to this 'Open file'). Each trainee was given a comprehensive, visually attractive course and workshop programme. It included a copy of the course model and this illustration, which became the leitmotif of the course. The curious bundle carried by the non-Western person in the illustration stimulated lively discussion about culture, education and change, and directed trainees to begin reflecting on the three-phase model. Perhaps the most direct challenge they faced was that for the first time they were to take full control of the workshop sessions. The structure of these sessions allowed for formats as diverse as oratory, ceremony, dance, demonstration, debate, discussion, dialogue and audio-visual presentations. It also allowed co-operative group presentations. After their presentations, trainees wrote individual papers reflecting upon and linking together lecture content, literature, research and their workshop experience.

The spirit and stride with which teacher trainees undertook this course cannot be adequately expressed in words. Few of the trainees missed a single session, many attended not only their own workshops but others as well. Interested staff from other sections of the college also attended workshops. Trainees approached these sessions with great enthusiasm. Working collaboratively, they explored their selected topic, often involving themselves in voluntary, practical field research within their own cultural communities, in addition to the reading and reflection that was required. The group process was greatly facilitated by the residential nature of the college. Workshop presentations were profound, professional and polished, and were thoroughly enjoyed by lecturers and trainees alike.

It was during Phase 1 on 'Pre-contact traditional education' that trainees excelled. They displayed a high level of confidence and ease in making presentations. Most of their research focused on questioning their own parents and grandparents. They showed a remarkable capacity to translate traditional knowledge into action. Taking to the stage, they demonstrated, danced, orated, sang and dramatized, suggesting that traditional Fijian and Indo-Fijian culture was still alive, particularly in rural areas. They displayed their cultures with pride, exposing not only explicit but implicit values in such a way that those who observed from outside were caught up in the energy, the vibrancy and the deeper meanings of their presentations. In the written requirements of the course, Fijian trainees rarely showed the skills evident in their workshop presentations. Usually Indo-Fijian Fijians wrote well and performed with less flair and panache in workshops. Traditionally, Fijians learn through observation, imitation and participation, not by writing, whereas Indo-Fijian Fijians are comparatively experienced with written responses. The response of the trainees in written work perhaps shows that traditional modes of learning are maintained in non-traditional learning situations.

At the commencement of the workshop programme, it was evident that Fijians and Indo-Fijians preferred to work in culturally homogenous groups. As the course unfolded, intermixing increased, and sometimes during role plays trainees began to take on the role of a person from another culture. This was usually greeted with good-natured laughter, but it undoubtedly helped to ease the relationships between the two cultural groups. By the end of the course, trainees appeared at ease with cultural differences, and were more able to affirm their cultural identity. Interestingly a significant number of trainees regularly began wearing traditional clothing to classes rather than the Western fashions which had been the preference at the beginning of the course. Trainees felt confident in using their vernacular during this course, but were hesitant to use it in most other classes.

At the conclusion of the course, a systematic evaluation was conducted. Trainees almost unanimously affirmed that they felt a greater pride in their own culture and were more aware and more secure in their own cultural identity. They also stated that they had gained a new awareness and respect for people from cultures other than their own. Certainly, they felt a deeper commitment to becoming culturally affirming as teachers, striving to bring at least some aspects of traditional learning into Fiji's classrooms. External evaluators from the University of the South Pacific also affirmed the content, structure and methodology of the course and commended the positive outcomes evident in trainees' attitudes and behaviour.

Indeed, it was gratifying to have achieved the set objectives with such conviction. However, they had been achieved in the relatively closed, sheltered and supportive environment of a residential college. The question remained as to whether these trainees could sustain their revitalized cultural identity in their lives outside the college, and whether they could encourage the students in their classrooms to recognize the importance of culture in their lives.

Had the graduating teachers of 1993 been able to carry their apparently newly awakened cultural identity into the classrooms of Fiji? Had they been strong enough to affirm the cultural identity of the students they taught? Or was their cultural identity too fragile to withstand the pressures of a strongly entrenched, unidirectional Western-style education system? When this group of young graduate teachers had almost completed their first year of teaching, the authors contacted them to find out the longer-term implications and effects of the course. Analysis of the returned questionnaires revealed the following information.

In 1994, trainees, now teaching predominantly in rural schools, indicated that they were able to maintain and strengthen their cultural identity by participating in community activities and ceremonies. The rural isolation they experienced in their villages where traditional culture is less eroded and where radical, new ideas are frowned upon, enabled them to be culturally strong.

In the schools, they found that the major opportunity for cultural education in the classroom was through music and dance classes. They used these opportunities to talk with students about the importance of culture and cultural identity. Oratory contests and drama competitions also provided opportunities for the exploration of culture. In some schools a period had been set aside for cultural activities and education. The graduate teachers stated that, because their own awareness of the importance of culture had been raised, they consistently urged students to discover their own cultural identities. They felt that the school could be the force behind cultural education, but that as yet, little had been done to promote this. They suggested that the whole issue needed further support from the Ministry of Education.

It was stated that the increasing exposure - even in remote areas - to foreign values and ideas needed to be counter-balanced with cultural change. The graduates suggested that this would be easier in village schools, especially with supportive teachers and the appropriate administrative structures. Urban schools provided a much greater challenge. They felt the greatest impediment to cultural education in Fijian schools was the examination system. Teachers and parents were focused on examination success and saw little room for activities and classes which did not support students preparing for exams.

Interestingly, respondents suggested that the political coups had probably initiated a cultural re-awakening for indigenous Fijians, particularly in community life. However, an increasing number of Fijian parents, especially in urban centres, looked to the schools to provide cultural education.

Reflecting back on their college training, graduates strongly endorsed what had been taught, but requested that an increased amount of time be spent on traditional education. Further, it was suggested that cross-cultural education be taught as a subject. The introduction of vernacular classes and the inclusion of extracurricular activities that promoted culture and cultural identity were also highlighted.

Conclusion

The overwhelming response of the trainees was that this course had empowered them, particularly in the college environment. The recognition and affirmation of their own cultures could only be described as 'joyous'. Culture in education became a celebration. Looking back on fifteen or sixteen years of schooling, trainees expressed the view that they had been 'culturally deprived' in their schooling. The college experience enabled them to see that culture could and should form an intrinsic part of education. In addition, the notion of sharing one's cultural identity and respecting the cultural identity of the other, helped trainees to overcome the feeling that one's culture was to be a hidden fragment of one's life, only aired in private, on special occasions, or as a quaint cultural event for tourist consumption.

Once in the field, teachers accepted the challenge of maintaining their cultural identity personally within the school and in the society at large. Enabling students within the schools to uphold their own cultural identity was more difficult because of the strong insistence by senior teachers and administrators that the primary purpose of schooling was to promote academic learning. Because a school's worth and that of its staff is largely measured by the examination success of its students, cultural activities are not generally regarded as within the province of a school's responsibilities. If included, they would be seen as taking over already limited academic time. However, teachers in rural communities do have a significant opportunity to promote culture out of school time, largely because they are regarded as leaders and mentors in village communities. In urban centres the cultural decay is greater, and there is opportunity for the school or its teachers to counteract it.

This case study shows that teacher training is an important avenue for promoting and affirming cultural identity through education. In the context of Fiji, teacher trainees come from culturally different backgrounds and will return after graduation to teach in schools where their cultures are represented. Although the Fijian education system leans strongly towards Western knowledge and its modes of transmission, teachers who are sure of their own cultural identity and are motivated to affirm the cultural identity of others can make a difference. As a starting point, the Fiji College of Advanced Education is attempting through its core education courses to take on this role. In this way the indigenous Fijian culture and that of the Indo-Fijian Fijian people can be recognized and affirmed. Perhaps its impact is as yet small, but with appropriate nurturing it will grow.

Where to now?

On a global scale, the survival of small cultures does have a sense of urgency. Both small cultures and transplanted cultures face extinction through homogenization. It is crucial now, in the face of intensive social change and technological development, that formal education addresses this issue of cultural survival.

Children who live in cultural situations where grandparents, parents, community elders and other relatives are able to pass on what is culturally significant are decreasing. Formal educators at every level will have to shoulder this important responsibility if cultural development is to continue. Fiji's schools, colleges and the university can be important agents of cultural transmission.

This case study has shown that a local teacher's training college can use education for cultural ends. In so doing, it has made a small contribution towards improving the well-being and strengthening the cultural identity of both the Fijian and Fiji Indian people. It is hoped that a ripple effect has been set in motion.

Yalomatua, spiritual wisdom in the Fijian context, should not be lost in the change. Artefacts and behaviours may change with the times, but the intrinsic underlying values of a culture, if destroyed or changed to conform to 'the other', sound the death knell of that particular culture. Perhaps by the year 2000 and beyond, Fijian educators will re-affirm the importance of yalomatua, of 'preserving the deep values and history of the culture thus maintaining a clear sense of personal and cultural identity' (Nabobo, 1994, p. 7).

It is evident that for the island nation of Fiji to survive and progress in an increasingly competitive world, the strong roots and deep-seated values of their peoples must be recognized and affirmed. The best way to achieve this goal is through the school system. Appropriately trained teachers using culturally sensitive curricula can be the fulcrum for a well-rounded cultural education for succeeding generations of Fijian and Indo-Fijian young people.

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