The historical desire for this curriculum is evident in literature describing the Solomon Islands journey with education in recent decades. The discourse in Pacific education, particularly in UNESCO documents, has been around the importance of the indigenous arts in education and for all Pacific nations to make shifts in their school curriculums to embrace arts and culture.
Solomon Island educators conducting research and writing theses in the last decade about education in the Solomon Islands have not addressed this study’s Arts and Culture Curriculum focus, directly or comprehensively. There is a need for this study and for further research. However Beuka (2008) in her thesis asking about the educational aspirations of parents for their children, gave her interview sample some questions that elicited responses that are pertinent here.
For example in Beuka’s findings a parent commented, “Schools should introduce subjects with practical skills. This should be taught by specialised people alongside the academic subjects” (Beuka, 2008, p. 67). She also recorded that some parents saw the importance of not only teaching academic and
vocational subjects but the teaching of local values, virtues, principles and work ethics. In Potter’s thesis about curriculum and societal needs, she states:
The content of the secondary curriculum provides much useful knowledge, but some gaps need to be filled, particularly in the area of the cultural, historical, geographical and global contexts of the Solomon Islands. Thirdly, the heavy emphasis on knowledge largely disregards students’ moral, spiritual, physical, aesthetic and affective faculties (Potter, 2005, p. 1).
UNESCO (2000, 8) considers a high regard for oral culture and knowledge a desirable outcome of schooling. The Solomon Islands’ MEHRD (2004, 7) would certainly agree, as it recommends the inclusions of indigenous language, literature (including oral tradition), culture and history. MEHRD also considers (2004, 31) the preservation of indigenous knowledge and skills vital for the
sustainable development of the Solomon Islands.
In “Social Change in Melanesia: Development and History” Paul Sillitoe (2000) reports that many school systems in the Pacific have recognised the importance of a wide-ranging school curriculum that includes the arts. Educators throughout the Pacific have kept promoting the arts as fundamental to the
education of young people, but many Pacific nations cannot afford the cost of implementation when literacy and numeracy remain important priorities. This has also been the case in the Solomon Islands where advocacy for arts and culture has existed since the 1970s but resources are limited and literacy and numeracy are prioritised. Tragically, “educators are beginning to recognise that it is not the students who fail but the education system that fails them and society” (Sillitoe, 2000, p. 209). The 2012 culture mapping report in the Solomon Islands, which asserted that more that 50% of indigenous traditional knowledge base has been lost, argued that culture must be included in school curriculum (Lidimani, 2011). The Implementation Process
Solomon Islands educator Rose Beuka, situated in the current reform process, posited that “An arts curriculum will not be more than plans and policy documents unless it is received, embraced and implemented by teachers and communities” (Beuka, 2008, p. 76). Her comments are affirmed by Dawson who reflected on curriculum reform in neighboring Papua New Guinea, showing that most reforms fail if they are not implemented and embedded within the school culture.
“The real test for the Department of Education and donor agencies is to make sure the curriculum and the teaching, learning and assessment processes that it promotes, are embedded in the work of schools. Only then will the nation realise the benefits of the curriculum development process. This is the challenge for every Pacific Islands country
implementing reform” (Dawson, 2005, p. 8).
New Zealand educator Eve Coxon who assisted in the Solomon Islands
curriculum review process, was commissioned to produce a report “Independent Review Of The Solomon Islands Curriculum Review & Reform Programme”
(Coxon, 2008). She described the review and reform process, named the key documents published along the way, and made recommendations to assist in the further development and implementation of the curriculum. Her understanding of the project from the inside was thorough and her recommendations are instructive.
Coxon identified a key factor in curriculum reform failure as a failure to provide aligned teaching and learning resources in sufficient quantity to enable teachers to deliver the new curriculum. Therefore she identified the importance of the current contract in place to produce teachers’ guides and students’ books and also the need for delivery strategies to get resources out to all the remoter
provinces.
Another key issue raised in Coxon’s report is the provision of in-service support to schools right throughout the country so that new curriculum materials can be used effectively. Here Coxon recommends a three-year, two-level junior secondary in-service training strategy be developed. This is so that every School Years 7-9 teacher “receives three cycles of professional development through both school-based and subject-specific clusters and that these be delivered by Key Teachers in each province” (Coxon, 2008, p. 13) .
Coxon also recommends that the means of financing the practical equipment required by every secondary school be identified, before the
introduction of School Year 7 curricula in these subjects. This strategic awareness of the implementation phase will provide sound support for any new curriculum.