More Technical, Agricultural Education

[?]Eacher Offers Praise And Criticism:

Three R's Important, But Tonga Needs More Technical, Agricultural Education

In Tonga, one can't help being impressed with the feeling of educational awakening in the air, as if Tonga is emerging from its winter of neglect and obscurity into a spring of en lightenment and achievement.

rT is true that the buds are open ing slowly, ever so slowly, and that the standards achieved in the illage schools are often depressingly [>w, but this is due not to any lack if goodwill and encouragement rom the present government, but o the legacy of inadequate and oorly equipped schools, and the iard core of untrained teachers, sft behind by the neglect and dis interestedness of former times.

But signs that point to a brighter ducational future are: • The steady building of new shools to replace old ones and to ope with the ever-increasing :hool population. • The development of teacher 'aining that was commenced only 2 years ago. • Improvement of teachers’ ilaries that will raise the dignity f the teaching profession and at •act better recruits to it. • The raising of the standards i the post-primary schools by the iffening of the requirements for ne Lower and Higher Leaving Cer ficates. • Development of Tonga High chool which aims to bring selected udents up to the level of the New saland School Certificate. • Selection of students for Lgher education in New Zealand aining colleges, universities, and ichnical schools. • The desire to seek the help id guidance of more trained uropean educational personnel.

Most of these improvements have ie worthy aim of producing better tters for the cultural advance of onga. But when one considers ie steps that are being taken to iprove the educational, technical id cultural advance of the great ass of the present youth of Tonga is more difficult to see encourag g signs.

"More Craftsmanship"

No attempt has been made to an an integrated, comprehensive heme of education covering all ipects of development. As a re lit, the whole educational system lop-sided with far too much em lasis on its academic side and r too little emphasis on its tech cal and agricultural side.

While one cannot decry the value r a good, comprehensive, academic

education as the means of forming an enlightened citizenship, it is true that one of the most urgent im mediate needs of the Tongan people is to improve their skill in craftsmanship so that they can build and repair dwellings and in crease their techniques with tools and machines, thereby increasing their usefulness as villagers, far mers, tradesmen, and transport drivers on land and sea.

But no training in the use of tools is given in the primary

schools, only very few secondary schools have woodwork or engineer ing facilities, and there are no wholly technical or manual train ing schools at all.

Moreover, the academic training of the primary schools is itself done only half-heartedly because of a reticence on the part of the teachers to make any serious at tempt to teach English.

The Education Department, be cause it believes that English is the key that will open the doors to the wider realms of cultural, literary, and scientific advance, and because it has neither the staff nor the means to produce school textbooks in Tongan, officially encourages the teaching of English.

But, despite the fact that its syllabus of instruction printed 18 years ago lays it down that teachers in the top classes of the primary schools must teach wholly in English, I met only one teacher who had sufficient confidence to do so.

One of the really frustrating things about Tongan education i! that there are so few opportunitie: for boys and girls to carry on then education after they leave school.

The usual channels of educatior available to adults in moderr society are the Press, the radio, anc the cinema. But in Tonga th< paucity of any kind of literature printed in the vernacular, apar from a few church publications almost nullifies the value of learn ing to read Tongan; and at presem the great mass of the people have not attained sufficient competence in English to make use of Englisf books and magazines.

Need for a Paper What a great influence a Tongar weekly or fortnightly magazine could have as a means of enlighten ment and further education!

The schools try to stimulate i child’s interest in the outside work by teaching geography and history but this interest soon flags withoui any radio giving local and work news, talks, or entertainment ir Tongan.

The radio, too, could perform ar important educational func t i o r through broadcasting model lesson! to schools. The cinema is taking up an increasingly important amoum of the Tongans’ leisure time and if probably the sole opportunity most of the people have of utilising the meagre amount of English thej have picked up from the schools.

It was really pathetic at times to watch the young men ol Kuku’alofa, with no cultural outlets such as youth clubs, communit> centres, or libraries, sinking intx an apathy of disillusionment re lieved only by the wild-west picture shows or the clink of balls in the billiard saloons.

I shall never forget the feeling cf futility that oppressed my spirits when, after inspecting schools on the lonely out-lying island ol Mo’ungaone in the Ha’apai Group, I sailed away knowing that I was leaving the inhabitants to a mental isolation that no Tongan newspapers or Tongan radio could penetrate.

It is really surprising in a country proud of its Christian tradi tions to find so little appreciation on the part of the Government of the work that the churches are doing for education.

Just a half of the primary school population of Tonga attends schools staffed and supported by the vari ous churches, with the Methodists predominating, while three-quarters of the secondary scholars attend Mission colleges. Yet the Govern ment gives no subsidies on the building of church schools and no grants to mission teachers.

In face of rising costs the Missions are finding the burden of support ing their schools increasingly hard

to bear, and a more generous financial co-operation between Gov ernment and Church would make for happier relations and increased 3ducational efficiency.

Eight Suggestions

To sum up, these are my sug gestions for the improvement of Congan education: (1) Provision of better school mildings with separate rooms for sach class, and desks for each pupil. (2) An increase in the number f teacher-trainees to overtake the ag of uncertificated teachers still emaining in the schools. (3) Provision of better facilities or the training of skills and crafts i the schools, and the building of a schnical school in Nukualofa with dvanced trade training, (4) Printing of more and better sxtbooks in Tongan for the use of le primary schools. (5) Granting of building subsidies n d staffing grants to Mission ffiools. (6) Publication of a magazine or ewspaper in Tongan for the dis jmination of local and world news nd the improvement of culture. (7) The setting up of a Tongan roadcasting station to abolish the olation of the scattered villagers ad to inaugurate broadcasts to ;hools. [A station is expected to 3 established in 1959, according to recent report]. (8) Promotion of adult education trough youth clubs, community mtres, and circulating libraries.

More Money Needed Of course, if the arrows of these forms are not to fall short of teir targets, they will need a eater financial impetus than is ven to education at present. It ems to me that there are two >ssible ways of doing this; • Increase the proportion of gen al revenue that is spent on educa >n. In 1953, only 7.9 per cent of wernment expenditure was de ted to education, a proportion that lower than in most modern untries. • Depart from the traditional ►licy of free education, either by king parents to pay a small fee about £1 a year for their tiool-going children, or by in tuting a small education tax of, y, 10/- a year which the whole lult community should pay.

Tonga is a young country sperately striving to fill an in sasingly worthy place in the roily of world peoples. But un >s it makes greater financial orifices to provide a better educa rial environment for all sections its people the spring of its de loping enlightenment will drag 3r so slowly towards the summer its cultural maturity.