Behind the shake-up in

A. Samoan TV education

Declaring that it was time for a breath of fresh air by obtaining a more helpful group of consultants, American Samoa’s Governor Owen Aspinall has changed management of its television education system (ETV).

National Educational Television Broadcasters (NAEB) are out.

He has recommended that University of Southern Californa, at Los Angeles, take over.

From the very beginning, ETV, instituted to the accompaniment of world-wide publicity of a few years ago by then-governor H. Rex Lee, has had its share of critics.

Many parents and teachers argue that it is too abstract an approach.

Lee’s successor Aspinall has con tended that the curriculum has not been relevant to the needs of Samoan youngsters and that the cost has been too high.

Over the years he has made some charges. His most serious was that NAEB had provided an inadequate scope of education and had ignored requests for vocational training, more teacher preparation, pre-school teach ing and adult education.

He also accused the organisation of failing to orientate new teachers to America Samoa. This, he says, resulted in teachers bringing with them possessions they did not need, or failing to bring those they did.

Last autumn he got fed up and began to consult with the University of Southern California. NAEB (an association of US universities and businesses and education specialists) immediately got its back up, and early this year resigned its contract.

The education director and several teachers will resign this June.

Governor Aspinall has praised the achievements of the elementary schools but castigated the high schools, noting that scholarship students sent to US universities were flunking out.

“I am not prepared to write off two or three thousand young people while I think there is a chance for them,” he has said, “I know the potential of a Samoan, if he could just speak English!”

Governor Aspinall turned to University of Southern California

because that school had extensive ex perience in teaching English to foreign students in crash program mes.

Emphasising the need for voca tion, the governor said recently: “You cannot get your suit dry cleaned in American Samoa, and you have to stand in line to get your car fixed. There are a lot of people here who do not want to become doctors or lawyers or teachers.”

Nor have employment opportun ities been created for the few who have been graduated from technical programs, he added.

“In many areas, educational tele vision has been a success in spite of NAEB, not because of it. If I took last year’s contract to court, I could prove they broke it.”

Many teachers took Aspinall’s dis satisfaction with NAEB’s policies as a slur on their abilities. They ac cused him of basing his arguments upon false assumptions and of

reaching questionable conclusions.

They called the NAEB educational plan a bold one, offering a “bright educational future” for the Samoan people.

They said the Governor had labelled the average department of education employee second-rate and incompetent. This Aspinall denied.

The teachers have declared that they will not walk out en masse over the disagreement, but many will resign “if current conditions prevail”.

NAEB will not recruit to replace those whose contracts terminate this year. Therefore, many television sets may be without monitors in June.

Owen Aspinall.