For over a decade, the Department of Education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has adopted vernacular education as a way of ensuring that the educational experiences of children in schools draw on the cultural and linguistic knowledge they bring to the classroom. In PNG, there are many potential vernaculars--apart from the local languages, there are Tok…

What counts as appropriate and relevant teaching and learning in post-colonial settings is seldom accounted for in terms of "indigenous" or "vernacular" classroom practices. The pervasiveness of western-styled education and curricula means that, for the most part, education by indigenous teachers in indigenous settings is…