POLITICS OF VERNACULAR LANGUAGE

Vernacular languages in village schools discriminate against villages, families and teachers.

There have been crack-pot policies come to PNG at the hands of expatriate so-called experts. One was the plan to have vernacular language used for the first two years of school.

This came from two major influences. One was from Professor Tom Dutton from the Australian National University who had the strong belief that children would benefit from vernacular language that would enhance future study.

This is obviously not true. In 1989, I attended a conference at Divine Word University in which the keynote speaker was Professor Dutton espousing the value of vernacular language.

At the end of his speech, I stood and told him politely in Tok Pisin that this was a heap of rubbish. Students have enough problems with English without deducting the years of elementary school. The conference was not pleased. I do not think I was to be invited again. He was unable to respond in Tok Pisin.

The other major influence was the Summer Institute of Linguistics that based their existence in country on belief that the Second Coming would not come until the Bible had been translated into all languages of the world. God is keeping count from a distance.

Vernacular language in village schools causes many problems. There may be no books in the vernacular language only the Bible. But the SIL may not have done the translation yet and the Second Coming is still a long way off.

The only teachers to be employed in a village are those who speak that village language. It is very unfair to the village, families, students and teachers. If the teacher leaves, there may be no replacement.

Many teachers will leave as they cannot handle the harsh conditions. To start with, their salary is paid into a bank account in the city. What if their school is up the Sepik River or in the middle of the Kokoda Track or the middle of nowhere?

They have to close the school down for 7-10 days every time they go to collect their pay. If not they starve. The teacher's wife has to work in the gardens. There is no money for soap, kerosene and flour.

Perhaps the LNG companies and Ramu NiCo can find a way to help teachers in their area to collect their pay with minimum disruption to the school.