NOUMEA, New Caledonia, Jul 25 (IPS) – New Caledonia, a French overseas territory of about 290,000 people in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, is struggling to recover from weeks of civil unrest that broke out in mid-May, leaving a trail of destruction and political unrest.
A vote in the French parliament to change the territory’s electoral list in favor of pro-French loyalists unleashed anger and clashes between the police and pro-independence supporters, most of whom are indigenous Kanaks.
But at the heart of the political grievances of the Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population, is their experience of more than a century and a half of entrenched inequality compared with the non-Kanak population. This includes disparities in educational outcomes and high unemployment.
“A lot of people don’t finish school and don’t have qualifications or degrees. A lot of families don’t have money and can’t afford to send their children to school,” Stelios, a young Kanak father living in the capital Noumea, told IPS. “Although within families people help each other to support each other.”
New Caledonia, which has large nickel reserves, has a robust economy with a gross domestic product (GDP) of USD 9.62 billion in 2022, compared to USD 1.06 billion in neighboring Vanuatu and USD 4.9 billion in Fiji. But there is a significant gap in incomes and living standards between the indigenous and long lasting non-Kanak settlers. Poverty and unemployment are major problems for Kanaks living in remote rural communities and informal urban settlements on the outskirts of the capital Noumea. While the overall poverty rate is 19.1 percent in New Caledonia, it rises to 45.8 percent in the Loyalty Islands province, where the majority of the population are Kanaks.
Eddie Wayuone Wadrawane, a university lecturer and expert in educational sciences at the University of New Caledonia, reports that there is a direct link between the education gap for Kanaks and their challenges in finding secure employment. While the unemployment rate for people under 30 in the area is 28.3 percent, the rate rises to 41.3 percent for those without a qualifying degree.
The Kanaks, the indigenous islanders, have lived under a form of French rule since the mid-1800s, when the islands became a colony. After World War II, New Caledonia was given the status of an “overseas territory” with greater recognition of citizenship and indigenous rights.
But a long history of poverty, loss of land to colonial authorities, forced relocation to reservations and marginalization of political participation led to numerous Kanak rebellions over decades, culminating in a major outbreak of conflict with the French authorities in the 1980sThe . negotiations The ensuing hostilities led to two agreements between the French government and local leaders. The Matignon Accord in 1988 and the Noumea Accord, signed in 1998, promised, among other things, to address socio-economic inequalities for the Kanak population, such as lack of access to education and lack of consultation in governance and political processes.
Public services and economic opportunities are concentrated in the southern province, which includes the capital Noumea. But there have been gains over the past two decades from government efforts to improve infrastructure and access to services such as education in the less developed northern provinces and the Loyalty Islands, where the majority of Kanaks live. The number of Kanak Graduates of universities and similar tertiary institutions rose from 99 in 1989 to 3,200 in 2014. But significant differences remain and reportedly only 8 percent of Kanaks had a college degree in 2019.
“A key part of the philosophy of the Matignon and Noumea Accords was the idea that New Caledonia was not ready for independence because there were no Kanak people in middle or senior management or in the professions,” Dr David Small, a senior lecturer at the Above the Bar School of Educational Studies and Leadership at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, told IPS.
But the French education system “is very selective and there are so many ways for Kanak people to slip out. Kanak people are also attuned to and very critical of the colonial nature of education in New Caledonia,” he continued.
During the pro-independence protests in New Caledonia in May against the French government’s electoral reforms in the territory, a large proportion of the people who demonstrated in the streets were young people aged 15 to 25. They expressed their anger not only at the electoral changes, but also at the hardships and inequalities that have marked their lives. The patience of the younger generation is wearing thin and they are no longer prepared to wait endlessly for the promises of a better life and opportunity to materialize.
‘Schooling can play an important role in offering these young people new perspectives and in bringing about social reforms in general,’ Wadrawane claims. Yet Dr Small says many Kanak youth are losing faith in the idea that New Caledonian society is a meritocracy and therefore in the ability of education to enable success and achievement in work and life.
But Stelios is one of those who persevered in school and finished high school, obtaining the Baccalaureate certificate.
“And I have a job. I work in a school, I assist the staff,” he said. He is also the father of three young children, all under the age of 7, and he is adamant that they will also receive an education.
Education experts, such as Wadrawaneadvocate retaining indigenous students in the education system by also incorporating Kanak culture and languages into the curricula.
“Currently, curricula are more attractive to students from mainland France and less so to students from overseas,” Wadrawane writes. He believes that “greater cultural awareness of young people in primary and secondary education is a philosophical, social and educational imperative” to reduce inequalities and improve their citizenship.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service