9. Dezember, 18h
TÜWI Beisl, Dänenstraße 4, 1190 Wien
(im Souterrain – direkt mit der Linie 40a zu erreichen!)
Liebe OSPG Mitlieder und InteressentInnen,
Unsere Weihnachtsfeier bekommt ein neues Format (und – ACHTUNG! – ein anderes Datum als ursprünglich angekündigt!)
Dieses Mal werden wir uns im gemütlichen TÜWI Beisl treffen, ein von BOKU Studierenden geleitetes Lokal.
Außerdem wird ein alter Bekannter aus Vanuatu, Pierre Metsan gemeinsam mit der Doktorandin Adeline Mweleul über das Bildungssystem in Vanuatu sprechen (mehr Infos siehe unten).
Danach gibt es eine selbstgekochte Stärkung, und zwar ein Bougna/Umu, was eine in Kokosmilch gekochte pazifische Köstlichkeit ist….!
Und viele gute Gespräche, pazifische Musik und Geselligkeit….
Dieses mal brauchen wir im Vornhinein einen Überblick, wieviele Gäste wir erwarten können – deshalb melde dich bitte unter diesem Link an! Dort gibt es auch noch mehr organisatorische Infos.
Wir freuen uns auf Euer zahlreiches Kommen!
Decolonizing school education in Vanuatu by integrating Indigenous knowledge and practices
Pierre Metsan, National University of Vanuatu (NUV), Vanuatu
Adeline Mweleul, Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), Vanuatu
9. Dezember, 18h
TÜWI Beisl, Dänenstraße 4, 1190 Wien
(im Souterrain – direkt mit der Linie 40a zu erreichen!)
School education has been introduced in Vanuatu during colonial times. There is still a huge gap between the daily life of students and the educational system – a disconnection between local Indigenous knowledge and practices on the one site, and school education on the other.
Schooling is not compulsory in Vanuatu, and in 2022, 73% of the children were sent to primary school. However, only 1.7% of the country’s total population has a university degree. There are several obstacles which explain the difficulties, and language is one of them. School education takes place in the colonial langue, either in English or in French. But more than 120 Indigenous languages are spoken on the around 80 islands of Vanuatu, representing a challenge for schooling.
Vanuatu increasingly recognizes the value of Indigenous knowledge and practices by integrating them into the reformed national curriculum. While partly developed by a private American company, the curriculum promotes “Western” knowledge alongside traditional practices such as dances, agriculture, and sand drawing.
This paper investigates the major challenges of Vanuatu’s educational system, and explains the efforts made for the integration of Indigenous knowledge and practices in schooling. The authors plead for locally adapted curricula and continued training of teachers.
Pierre Metsan, originally from Malekula island in Vanuatu, is a former secondary school principal. He has finished in September 2025 a PhD thesis at University of New Caledonia on the integration of sand drawings in mathematics education and its role for decolonization of the educational system in Vanuatu. He currently teaches at School of Education at the National University of Vanuatu.
Adeline Mweleul, orginally from Pentecost islands in Vanuatu, currently works at the Curriculum Development Unit at the Ministry of Education and Training. She holds a Master degree in Geography from the University of Caledonia and will start a PhD thesis at Sorbonne University (France) on urban agriculture and food sovereignty in Port-Vila and Luganville (Vanuatu).