Educational, Social and Financial Development in Communities in the South Pacific.

This paper examines some of the South Western Pacific Island nations and considers their economic and social development and the ways in which education can play a role in future development. Excluding Australia, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand, the south-western part of the Pacific is home to 20 small nations. This paper focuses on five of those nations: (1) Fiji; (2) Solomon Islands; (3) Vanuatu; (4) Tonga; and (5) Cook Islands. Smaller island countries are still heavily reliant upon external aid to support their development. Efforts toward development are being addressed at the local and community levels with the aid of small grants from the International Community Education Association (ICEA). Aid is based upon the belief that people in their local communities can acquire the confidence, knowledge, and skills to meet their needs and solve their problems with a minimum of external support. An appendix lists some of the small grants of the ICEA in the Pacific Region 1990-1994. (EH)