ABSTRACT
The political situation in the New Hebrides, a group of small islands in the South-west Pacific, has on many occasions been described as 'pandemonium'. For many years the New Hebrides was regarded as a no-man's land, and little interest was shown in the country by the two major colonial powers in the Pacific - Britain and France. In colonial times, as was the case with most formerly dependent territories, schooling was first begun by missions. The French Ministry of Education was slow to take full charge of French-medium education and left it to the missions and the local administration until 1968 when it took over undenominational schools, and in 1973 when it annexed Catholic schools. Nonetheless the late 1970s saw some constructive moves towards a unified education system. The replacement of the dual metropolitan system by a single administration and social services will do much to encourage unity between the English and French educated sections of the population.
