Education Strategies for Small Island States

The starting point for anyone concerned with education in small island states has to be David Atchoarena’s Fundamentals of Educational Planning published by UNESCO in 1993. Here is the Preface, written by Françoise Caillods, ( Co-general editor of the series) and Atchoarena’s Table of Contents. Much is televant to SIDS today.

The booklet is one of a series written primarily for two types of clientele: those engaged in educational planning and administration, in developing as well as developed countries; and others, less specialized, such as senior government officials and policy-makers who seek a more general understanding of educational planning and of how it is related to overall national development. They are intended to be of use either for private study or informal training programmes.

“Small states have been attracting a lot of attention for several years. Numerous publications have been devoted to them in various fields, and in particular that of education. This interest undoubtedly reflects their emergence at the forefront of the international scene, and their undeniable strategic importance - which can be demonstrated if only by counting the number of small states that have been created over the last twenty years in the Caribbean, the South Pacific, and more recently in Eastern Europe.
Nevertheless, this interest goes far beyond mere political opportunism, for small island countries are confronted with specific problems that require appropriate reflection and responses. To quote just a few examples, because of the absence of economies of scale, resulting precisely from the small size of these countries, the preparation of teaching curricula, the production of school textbooks, the organisation of examinations and the establishment of an evaluation and acquisition validation system, the training of teachers and more generally the organisation of post-secondary education are all extremely expensive undertakings. Most of these countries therefore use foreign curricula and textbooks, and send their students abroad for training. This leads to cultural dependence and vulnerability, which cannot fail to reinforce the economic dependence and vulnerability that these countries already suffer.

In this booklet, the author, David Atchoarena, starts by presenting characteristics common to small states, which constitute a set of specificities and constraints, but also advantages. He then lucidly analyses the various problems encountered by officials responsible for educational management and planning, before suggesting a number of concrete action strategies. These formulae are not entirely specific to small island states, but they constitute a coherent group of appropriate measures that educational planners in these countries can apply to their advantage.

The author reminds us that, despite their similarities and points in common , small states are quite varied: it is preferable not to adopt a standard-setting approach and not to pretend to suggest solutions valid for all. Hence the case of archipelago states, which is almost an extreme case of the effects of small size, remoteness and insularity, is discussed separately.

The author closes by giving the components of a planning approach for these countries. Here again, the suggested approaches and techniques are not fundamentally different from those that are or could be applied elsewhere. Nevertheless, the characteristics and the constraints of small island countries should lead planners to favour certain approaches and techniques and to reject others.

Because of his experience at the Ministry of Finance and Planning in Saint Lucia, and then at the ADEP in the French West Indies, David Atchoarena pays very particular attention to vocational training and human resources development policies in island states. He thereby makes a very original contribution to the existing literature on this theme, as well as to the series on Fundamentals of Educational Planning.
This very rich volume should be of interest to all individuals, decision-makers, planners and also aid agency officials, who are concerned about improving the management of education systems in small island states.

Preface

Introduction

Small states: an attempt at definition and characterisation

The notion of size

The position of small states in the international community

A heterogeneous group

Socio-economic context and education

The implications of smallness for education

Educational profile of small states

Problems specific to small states in the field of education

Strategies for action

Structuring the system

Mastering economic parameters and the instruments of planning

Pedagogical resources and systems

The administration and management of the system

Openness of the system to the outside world

The case of archipelago states