Academic Buccaneering Australian Style: The Role
of Australian Academics in the South Seas*
Tupeni Baba
The aims of this article are threefold: first, to examine Australia's
educational policy in the South Pacific, particularly through its bilateral
aid programme; second, to highlight some of the effects of such a policy on
the islands' education systems and on the major regional institution — the
University of the South Pacific; and third, to examine some of the issues
arising out of Australian educational policy in the South Pacific and to
explore alternatives which could be considered if the interests of the donor
and recipients are to be upheld.
I need to explain from the outset why the word 'buccaneer' is used in the
title of the article. Buccaneers were adventurers, many of whom were
known to be unscrupulous. They plundered the riches of new lands and
their 'natives' and thereby amassed wealth and fortune either for them-
selves or in the name of their 'king (or queen) and country', At the same
time they extended the boundary of influence and power of their empire.
Not all seafaring adventurers were unscrupulous and evil; some were
genuinely interested in advancing the welfare of the natives but
unfortunately they were also tarnished by the exploits of their
unscrupulous fellow buccaneers.
Australia's interest in the Pacific
Over the last decade or so, we have observed an increasing interest and
involvement of the Australian government in the Pacific. Perhaps the
setting up of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
Defence which was headed by Senator J.P. Sims in September, 1976
marked the beginning of Australia's increased involvement in the Pacific.
The report of this Committee recognised the importance of the existing
economic ties of Australia with the countries of the South Pacific, and it
* Based on a paper presented at the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the
Australian and New Zealand Comparative and International Education Society,
Queensland University, 1-5 December, 1986.
3
recommended:
that Australia should increase its efforts to broaden and develop its relations to
take into account political, diplomatic, social, cultural and sporting
considerations. Australia, in partnership with South Pacific countries must
work to promote more widespread and frequent exchanges between people at
all levels.'
In the field of education, the Sims Report recommended the provision of
facilities for technical, agricultural, marine, mechanical, medical and
social welfare training consistent with the needs and requirements of the
South Pacific. The Report also endorsed the need for training in Australia
when such is not practicable in the islands and it welcomed regional co-
operation in education through the establishment of the University of the
South Pacific and its extension centres, and also the establishment of the
South Pacific Board for Educational Assessment (SPBEA). The Report
recommended Australian support for these regional co-operative efforts2
in education.
Aid and education policies
In 1981, the Australian Development and Assistance Bureau (ADAB) set
up an Education and Training Mission to the South Pacific headed by M r
C.E.T. Terrell, Assistant Secretary of the Development Training Branch of
A D A B . The Mission recommended:
...that Australia adopt as a major objective of aid it provides to the countries of
the region in support of manpower development, the rapid reduction of their
dependence on expatriate skilled manpower and their self sufficiency in
administrative, managerial and technological expertise in the public sector.3
The Terrell Report recognised the importance of having the above training
done locally or regionally whenever possible and it noted the pivotal role of
the regional University of the South Pacific in undertaking such training.
The Report further stated that:
Australia should recognise the regional role of USP by encouraging countries
of the region to make maximum use of its facilities and generally to limit
opportunities for study in Australia to areas in which the USP is unable to offer
a service or in respect of which there is a particular need outside the region.4
4
The Report recommended that, in order to undertake the above, priority
should be given to enhancing the capability of national and regional
training institutions to enable them to meet local training needs. It further
endorsed the need for giving priority to training programmes that were
directly related to achieving this.5
In 1984, the Australian government established a major review of its
programme through a committee headed by Mr Gordon Jackson.6 The
Jackson Report undertook a critical analysis of Australia's aid
programmes and it came out heavily in favour of bilateral aid
arrangements, at least with regard to education, research and technical
assistance. In respect of the above, the Report said:
Assistance for education within developing countries should be emphasised in
bilateral aid programming. More support should be given to curriculum
development and teaching training for primary, secondary, and vocational
schools. Support for national and regional post secondary education should
be continued with a strong emphasis on the involvement of Australian colleges
of advanced education, and technical and further education institutions.7
The Jackson Report also recognised the benefit to Australia of having
foreign students and recommended that a liberal policy be adopted
towards accepting them into Australian institutions.
In emphasising the use of bilateral aid programmes, the Report effectively
neutralised the thrust of the Terrell Report which had stressed the
importance of enhancing the capability of regional and national
institutions and the need to use these institutions whenever possible for
training purposes instead of relying on Australian institutions. It needs to
be noted that the Jackson Report's strong support for the use of Australian
colleges of education, technical and further education institutions came at
a time when these institutions were experiencing falls in enrolment and
when some were threatened with closure. It obviously would be to
Australia's advantage to adopt the recommendations.
The more liberal policy advocated by the Jackson Report for overseas
students would make it easy for the islands in the South Pacific to use
Australian bilateral aid to send their students to study in Australian
institutions. It would also have the effect of undermining the regional and
national institutions in the South Pacific both in terms of student numbers
and financial support.
5
The net effect of the Jackson Report was to ensure a greater dependence of
the countries of the region on Australia and Australian institutions — an
effective policy of neocolonialism. It can be argued that if each small
island state is to be able to have a greater degree of self-determination or
self-reliance in its relationship with metropolitan countries in the Pacific
and on its rim, it would need to rely a lot more on co-operative efforts with
its neighbouring islands. For this purpose, the island nations have
collectively established over 200 regional organisations and institutions in
various fields, including education. The Australian policy as
recommended in the Jackson Report undermined such regional efforts.
Before examining specific cases of Australian involvement in the countries
of the region, it would be useful to dwell briefly on the shift of Australia's
policy towards bilateral as against multilateral aid arrangements.
Australia's multilateral aid amounts to 25% of its total aid budget; the
Jackson Report recommended that it should be maintained at that level.
On the other hand, 74% of Australia's aid is made available through
bilateral programmes. There has been a big increase in the amount of
bilateral aid to the Pacific over the last decade or so. In fact, the increase
from $US1 million to $US49 million between the period 1969/70 and
1982/83 represents an increase from 1% to 9% of Australia's total aid. The
Jackson Report strongly supported such a shift in Australian aid policy.
Some examples of Australia's bilateral assistance in education
It is not possible to provide here a detailed account of ail the projects in the
various countries of the South Pacific that Australian academics have been
involved in through ADAB, nor is it possible to provide the detailed costs
for each project as this type of information is not generally available even
to recipient countries. My purpose in including some of the projects is to
give a general idea of the activities and the method of execution of the
projects by Australian institutions and agencies.
Here is a sample of some projects in Western Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati,
Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
Western Samoa (a) Primary Curriculum Development — managed by
Macquarie University
(b) Secondary Teachers' College — managed by
Macquarie University
6
(c) Curriculum Development for Junior Secondary
Schools — managed by the International Training
Institute, Sydney
Tonga (a) Primary Curriculum Development — managed by
Macquarie University
(b) Secondary Teacher Education Programme —
managed by Macquarie University
Kiribati Curriculum Development for Community High
Schools — managed by the Salisbury College of
Advanced Education.
Solomon Secondary Education Project on the Training of
Islands Junior Secondary Teachers — this was recently
advertised in Australia.
Tuvalu Upgrading of Secondary Education which would
involve teacher education (and probably
curriculum development) — currently under
discussion and consideration.
Most of the above projects take about 2-3 years to complete and they cost
up to millions of dollars. The projects are managed by Australian
institutions and they hire Australian academics. In many cases, academics
are specially hired to undertake the work on behalf of managing
institutions and they are released after the project. In other cases, existing
staff of managing institutions are used.
It is of interest to note that virtually all of the activities in all the above
projects can be done by the staff of the University of the South Pacific and
for which, half of the staff involved would be citizens of the countries of the
region. In fact, the staff of the Institute of Education and the School of
Humanities (formerly the School of Education) at USP have been involved
with similar activities in the region, such as in teacher education,
curriculum development, etc., for over ten years and a considerable pool of
expertise and local knowledge has been built up in the various
specialisations of education.
An examination of the activities involved in all the projects would show
that they are very basic and they are usually the kind of activities that any
School of Education could be called upon to do. This is certainly true of
both the Western Samoa and Tonga projects. In fact, the projects on
curriculum development would require the heavy involvement of local
7
teachers and local scholars either in national institutions or the regional
university, USP.
The training of junior secondary school teachers in Solomon Islands,
Western Samoa and probably in Tuvalu is in line with the kind of work
that the USP School of Humanities has been doing. This is closely related
to the consultancy work done by its staff and those at the Institute of
Education for many years in the development of curriculum at the junior
secondary level. In fact, the USP programme for the preparation of junior
secondary school teachers had to be suspended a few years ago owing to a
reduction in the number of students enrolled. This was due not to the lack
of need but more to the lack of funds in the smaller countries of the region
either to send their students to USP or to meet the cost of the development
of similar programmes in their own national teacher training colleges either
independently or in association with the USP. Such an association was
developed with two of the teacher education colleges in the region —
Western Samoa Secondary Teachers' College and Malapoa College in
Vanuatu.
It would appear therefore that the exclusive involvement of Australian
institutions and academics in these projects is not because of a lack of
expertise or willingness on the part of academics and educators at the
University of the South Pacific and at national institutions in the region. It
is a matter of deliberate policy.
It would also be of interest to look at the method of execution of some of
the projects. Some of the questions that have been asked about this are:
How are the projects initiated? Who determines the nature of the project?
How are the managing agents appointed? How are the staff selected? What
degree of consultation with academics and educationists in the region and
at USP takes place? How are the projects assessed? What happens at the
end of the project?
Here is an account from a Principal, in one of the small countries of the
region, which will give some insight into what goes on at the early stage of a
project:
In December '85 Dr X visited my school. He returned again in March '86 with
an official and an architect and they produced a physical plan of the school
which would cost $A4m. The plan would cost more than the budget of my
8
country for any one year. In July '86 a Japanese team visited the school at the
request of the Australian government to fund the project... but nothing has
been done so far.... I pointed out to Dr X some of the difficulties of filling in for
teachers going on training leave. Dr X then came up with a plan for sending
teachers to Australia for a year's training and they would be replaced by
Australian teachers.
Dr X suggested that I take a visit to Brisbane, Townsville, Sydney and
Wollongong.... I did not ask for the visit. During the visit, I met all the
important people... and was told that the project would start next year, 1987....
I feel there was a lot of salesmanship by those involved... everything seemed
possible. The money consideration was brought up only in the last two days of
my two weeks' visit.9
There is no suggestion that all the projects started like the one above but
from discussions with some of the regional Principals of teachers' colleges
and the Directors of Education involved, I gathered that most, if not all,
were taken on a similar tour to Australia.
There is no doubt that extensive discussions took place with the nations
involved but not with the University of the South Pacific, even in cases
where the University has been involved in similar projects in those
countries.
The managing agents are Australian institutions, although recently a
number of private companies and consortiums have begun to bid for
projects and one interesting aspect of this is that some of the former staff of
USP who have returned to Australia have now become actively involved in
bidding for projects. Some have even set up private companies to
undertake such work. The University of the South Pacific is not invited to
participate on an equal basis with Australian institutions but in some cases
individuals are invited informally at the discretion of the Australian
managing institutions to participate in specific consultancies. Where this
has happened, the outcome has been very satisfactory on both sides and for
the recipient country. In fact one of the most successful projects in the
region was the one in Kiribati concerned with the development of
curriculum for community high schools. This was managed by Salisbury
College of Advanced Education and they involved consultants from the
Institute of Education at USP on an informal basis. In some cases,
requests for informal discussions with staff at USP by some Australian
individuals have been resisted by senior ADAB officials.
9
Perhaps the fault lies not with individuals or institutions but with the mode
of implementation of bilateral aid programmes. Perhaps the island
nations are equally to be blamed for not insisting on full involvement of
their national and regional institutions. However, this begs the question of
whether they have a say in the choice of institutions to manage projects.
It needs to be pointed out that the New Zealand bilateral aid programme
permits USP through the Institute of Education to be the managing agent
of its projects as in the longstanding Tonga curriculum development
project. This is a model that could be explored by ADAB. With greater co-
operation and involvement by regional and Australian academics a
number of conflicts and difficulties could be resolved.
It is also important to note, while looking at the involvement of Australian
institutions, the handling of multilateral aid through the International
Development Program of Australian Universities and Colleges (IDP). IDP
involves the USP fully in all its projects; it is responsive to its needs and
problems, and is therefore highly regarded and effective in its aid delivery.
Some implications
It is evident from the above that the current bilateral aid arrangements
ignore and undermine an important regional resource base which could
have been tapped for mutual benefit of recipients and donors. It could also
foster healthy academic and scholarly interaction among those involved. It
would be in the long term interest of the countries in the region if the
capability of its regional institution is enhanced and consolidated. This
would be one way of ensuring that it will be in a better position to respond
to regional needs rather than it being required, as has happened so often, to
'pick up the bits' after the overseas consultants have gone home.
I suggest that USP be invited to be involved as equal partners in managing
bilateral aid projects in recognition of its expertise and experience as the
major regional institution in the South Pacific. Even if the above
suggestion cannot be met, informal consultations and the invitation to
participate should be extended to USP by Australian managing agencies
and bidders. This would only reinforce what is being sought by some
enlightened overseas consultants.
10
The implementation of the above suggestions would at least lead to the
following additional outcomes:
1. Costs would be kept low and savings, if any, would flow to the
recipient countries.
2. Regional staff would gain valuable experience and applied research in
projects which affect the future of their countries.
3. Overseas staff would develop regional contacts and extend their
experience in educational development work.
4. Projects will draw from a greater pool of expertise; and
5. Educational aid will generate goodwill and healthy respect amongst
donors, recipients and participants.
Notes
1. Australian Parliament (1978) Australia and the South Pacific: Report of the
Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. Canberra:
Australian Government Publishing Service, p. 3.
2. Ibid., p. 5.
3. ADAB (1981) Report of the Education and Training Mission to the South
Pacific (The Terrell Report). Canberra: Printwrite, p. 10.
4. Ibid., p. 17.
5. Ibid., p. 18.
6. Commonwealth of Australia (1984) Report of the Committee to Review the
Australian Overseas Aid Program (The Jackson Report). Canberra:
Australian Government Publishing Service.
7. Ibid., p. 10.
8. Ibid., p. 49.
9. Interview with the Principal of a High School in a small country in the South
Pacific region on 12 November, 1986.
11
|
