Life on an island

[Stacey King]

Fiji Times Online - By THERESA RALOGAIVAU Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Students of Rabi High School. Picture: THERESA RALOGAIVAU
STUDYING at Rabi High school is nothing short of a wholesome experience. There is the weaving of traditional island mats to be learnt, beading dance necklaces, plaiting raffia skirts, learning how to build canoes and the okatano. It's a fantastically exciting academic realm that beats ditching classes any day, I think.

But that's not to say that physics, maths and chemistry and the other 'more serious' subjects do not play a central role in the school curriculum.

Students are expected to face those tests. It's just that learning about things cultural gets just as much emphasis and rightly so because not everyone's going to turn out a nurse or teacher, doctor or electrician, banker or enforcement officer. Some will remain and fish their living from the sparkling turquoise sea that surrounds the Cakaudrove island.

Others will carve an income from selling traditional artifacts while others will till the land and reap a bountiful green harvest provided they work hard.

So it's a curriculum that prepares its scholars for many eventualities and for that school teachers must be saluted.

Rabi High school was established early in the 1980s as a junior secondary school at Nuku settlement with an initial roll of about 50. Numbers have gradually increased to 250, forcing the relocation of the school to Tabiang, about 1985.

Over the past two years, the school has enjoyed an increasing pass rate for external examinations except for the Fiji School Leaving Certificate exam that dwindled from 68 per cent in 2007 to 62 per cent last year. The biggest challenge for students is transportation they face, often up to three times a week, according to vice-principal Benia Korauea when the lone bus or truck breaks down.

In such a situation, students either walk or stay home. However, the school, intent on improving the pass rate to more than 60 per cent for all external exams, has encouraged parents of students in external exam classes to build a bure around the school compound.

"In this way, we have 100 per cent attendance for the exam classes," Ms Korauea said. In the physics lab, Form Six students Ienraoi Aaron and Kaeroa Vulase held a swinging pendulum and were finding the relationship between strength and force.

In the umbrella-like stands outside, Rachel Henty and Toaua Chang Benson prepared for the Form Seven finals. In the library, students pored over newspapers the school subscribed to, according to principal Ranjishwar Prasad, so that they could keep abreast with current affairs. "We might be an island but we are not at the same time," he said. "Do you know what I mean?".

In the computer room, other students surfed the net on neat-looking Apple laptops. Despite its apparent isolation Rabi High was keeping abreast with educational technology in the hope of giving its students the chance to get off the island and into the nation's white collar workforce. The reality of the matter is that over the years many stay behind and continue life on the island.

"Some of our students have gone on Multi-Ethnic scholarships to study at the Fiji Institute of Technology," Ms Korauea said.

"So it's important that we prepare them for life on the island that largely revolves around the land and sea.

"Past leaders of the school have always emphasised the importance of teaching them canoe building, making toddy and weaving."

Art and craft teacher Tamilo Paseu says from a very young age, a Rabi child is surrounded by the cultural things that identify this ethnic group. "He goes out and plays in a canoe and the girls dance," he said.

"And when you look at a Rabian's life it is intricately woven with a canoe which he uses for fishing and travelling so he needs to learn how to make one."

The okatano is a low-roofed bure-like attachment to a Rabi home often used as a place for the family to gather for food, serious talk or just for laughter.

The special building for art and craft lessons was built to accommodate for space that is needed to build a canoe, the okatano and for getting down and dirty encouraging enjoyment in class. Cultural creations line the walls and the sound of hammering softly reverberates around the school compound.

It is an exciting academic setting to be in.

[Marlie Rota]

Further to my comment of below and the subsequent posting of this article on NOPE (Network of Pacific Educators), I just thought to post some interesting comments by educators around the pacific to support the current practise of learning that Rabi High School is currently engaged in.

From Donald Maka, CAP Manager, Save the Children Australia on Solomon Islands;

Very interesting story to learn from. A job well done

From Tili Afamasaga, University of Western Samoa

That is what RPEIPP is all about. Great model Rabi High School.

From Dr Kabini Sanga, Victoria Uniservity of Wellington, New Zealand

Colleagues:

The recent circulation about Rabi High school and its education experience seemed to have resulted in a sense of uplift for a good number of NOPERs who have recently commented. As Tili had pointed out, the Rabi story is exactly the kind of educational experience that the Rethinking Pacific Education Initiative (RPEI) is advocating for. More so, over the last 8-9 years, the RPEI has been calling for the “rethinking” of the ideals, ideas, frameworks and practices of economic systems, leadership and governance, justice, science, research and more. Our central message has been for Pacific Islanders to start with their contexts first, rather than with the external idea, the international framework, the global model of best practice or the outside expert.

In the RPEI, we had argued that a firmer and more rooted contextual grounding first, is likely to pay off better in the longer term, as a strategy for dealing with a dynamic world. Not the other way round, we say. The starting and primary assumptions, in our view, are essential because they influence which routes you subsequently follow. Unfortunately, many of our educational development journeys in Pacific contexts had started on inappropriate, dated or unclear starting points. In some instances, we seem to remain on the starting plates when we should have moved on. Subsequently, Pacific education systems are having to tidy up, as a predominant role.

As one of the advocates of the RPEI philosophy, I have missed the learning engagement with donors and some Pacific education officials. It would seem that the up-take by donors and some Pacific educational officials in the discussions on the RPEI message or its emerging “evidences” have not been forthcoming. Even NZAID as a partner with the Pacific educators of the RPEI has not kept up with its engagement and learning. My hope is for Pacific education donors to engage with us, Pacific educators, beyond just the politics of aid.

I see that the challenge for us as ‘The educators of the Pacific’ is to repeat and sustain Rabi High-like schools and experiences in all our countries. As earlier stated, the need to provide ‘uplifting educational experiences’ is in all areas of Pacific development; not just in education. The arena of policy-good governance in Pacific countries is one such area, where there seems to be many well-intentioned, donor-supported initiatives which continue to ignore the RPEI philosophy of Pacific development. My invitation: Let us talk, shall we? After all, the communities you’re wanting to ‘develop’ are ours. The people are our kainga, aiga and wantoks.

It is so encouraging to note that Rabi High School's effort in preserving our way of living while learning other ways of living is praised around the educational realm. Kam na bati rabwa, Rabi High School mae mi kekeiaki!!

[Senidamanu Talei Fox]

The article probably needed to refer to those on Rabi as Banaban's.

[Marlie Rota]

I think this is an absolutely fantastic approach, drawing on the strengths of traditional Banaban culture, heritage and knowledge and adding knowledge from the rest of the world to create their own knowledge and way in the world.

We often hear about the Knowledge Society and assume it is about western knowledge, but the power lies in creating your own knowledge, not just copying information from others.

Great work - Rabi High School!!

You have demonstrated that bilingual education is the way towards academic success, take away the first language and you take away the culture. You have a great model that other Pacific Island countries should encourage.