ABSTRACT
To analyze the discourses surrounding ‘solutions to the problem of illiteracy’ in Papua New Guinea (PNG), it is necessary first to understand the contexts and causes of illiteracy —the economic, social, and political features of neocolonialism in PNG, and the failure of an education system that is both founded upon and consistently undermined by these features. In many industrialized countries, the ‘blame the schools’ and the accompanying ‘back to basics’ rhetoric concerning literacy standards have served to divert attention from underlying political, social and economic problems, and to buttress regressive social and economic orders. Issues that underlie ‘the illiteracy problem’ in PNG are social, economic, and political; education systems do not exist in isolation, but are themselves a manifestation of and an instrument used to perpetuate those systems. In the case of PNG, the education system plays such a vital role in creating and maintaining neocolonialist domination that it must serve as a major focus of critical debate and radical reconstruction before the more specific issue of literacy can be addressed in any meaningful way.
