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In this chapter, increasing education civil society organization (CSO) and coalition participation in education and development policy processes is interpreted from the perspective of network governance theories. In 2015 “deadline” year for the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals, I consider their significance and influences within the decolonizing and reorienting “policyscapes” that govern the region and/or sub-region that is variously known as Oceania and the Pacific. The chapter is based on continuing research begun in 2007 into education policy processes at multiple discursive and geographical levels of activity, with a focus on the Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and Melanesian sub-regions. A critical educational policy approach is taken, specifically drawn from the application of methods of Critical Discourse Analysis based in critical development and postcolonial theories. These analytical strategies are particularly salient in mapping and understanding how education policy actors, some “new,” have moved toward and through inclusive and protective regionalism(s). These had developed prior to and during the past quarter of a century of significant changes to governments, governing and governance in the Pacific, Oceania, and well beyond.

This chapter reviews the history of an approach to networking between practitioners which uses inquiry-based methods to document innovative examples of inclusive education. The networking task is located in the context of efforts to promote Education for All which have so far failed to include the economically poorest and most marginalised children. The case of the Pacific region’s efforts to include children with disability in education is presented as a particular challenge, given its small, multilingual and geographically scattered population. An emerging strategy is presented as a framework for analysing the context of, and promoting greater conceptual clarity around, inclusive education in the Pacific region. Ultimately this networking approach has the potential to measure progress towards a more nuanced conceptualisation of the inclusive education agenda.

This chapter examines the usefulness of the field of comparative and international education (CIE) in reference to supporting and informing the development of education in the Pacific Islands (Oceania) region. Accordingly, it reconsiders the conceptualization and practice of the field by unpacking understandings of CIE with specific reference to the Pacific Islands. I argue that advancing the field in Oceania entails critical examination of context, of persisting colonial legacies in education and the broader social, economic, and political landscape. Considerations of these discourses identify some of the tensions, contradictions, and ambivalences that eventuate as “education for national development” is reconciled with indigenous knowledges and the intellectual traditions that sustain Pacific island communities. Adopting a postcolonial perspective, this chapter explores recent educational initiatives in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Solomon Islands. These initiatives reveal the complexities and multifaceted dynamics that underpin the context of Pacific Islands systems of education. They also reflect how Pacific educational leaders negotiate global imperatives for education while observing indigenous knowledge systems and cultural values. The lessons drawn from these case studies suggest that comparative education scholars need to rethink partnerships with colleagues and neighbors in consideration of Pacific and indigenous (including Australia and New Zealand) cultural protocols of engagement by honoring respect and reciprocity, mutual benefit, and empowerment. Such conceptual and practical reconsiderations may facilitate an assessment of the impact of western intellectual contributions on systems of education in Oceania.

This chapter offers a selective review of the emerging Indigenous Pacific educational research from 2000 to 2018. The Pacific region is home to many and various cultural groups, and this review is an opportunity to celebrate the consequent diversity of thought about education. Common threads are used to weave this diversity into a set of coherent regional patterns. Such threads include the regional value to educational research of local metaphor, and an emphasis on relationality or the state of being related as a cornerstone of education, both in research and as practice. The relationship between indigenous educational thought and formal education in indigenous contexts is also addressed. The review pays attention to educational research centered in home islands and that which focuses on the education of those from Pacific Islands in settler societies since connections across the ocean are strong. Because of the recent history of the region, developments are fast paced and ongoing, and this chapter concludes with a sketch of research at the frontier. Set within the context of an area study, the chapter concludes by suggesting what challenges the region has to offer in terms of re-thinking the field of international and comparative education.

Through the ideas of and within Oceania that we outline, and within which we locate architecture and institutions for CIE regionally, we illustrate the identified turning points through analysis of dynamic and intersecting trajectories of the Oceania Comparative and International Education Society (OCIES), formerly the Australia and New Zealand Comparative and International Education Society (ANZCIES), and the Vaka Pasifiki, formerly the Rethinking Pacific Education Initiative for and by Pacific Peoples (RPEIPP) project. We offer initial responses to an over-arching theme in posing the question: how, and through what processes, have these groups influenced understandings of ‘regionalism’ for CIE within Oceania? This involves examining the conferences, financing, membership, the Society journal/publications and aspects of CIE education of the two bodies.

Countries across the Pacific are going through significant educational reforms. One of the most significant reforms within the education sector relates to education of children with disabilities. There is a push at the regional level to include students with disabilities in mainstream schools. Many countries are in the process of either revising existing policies or drafting new policy documents to implement inclusive education practices. One group of stakeholders that is going to be directly influenced by the policies is the families of children with disabilities. No attempts have been made to understand what parents think about the new policy directions. In this chapter, we make an attempt to present parental perspective about inclusive education from four countries of the Pacific (Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu). We believe understanding parental perspectives about inclusive education from the Pacific will shed some light on how likely the new reform will be embraced by them. It will also identify any significant issues of concern that may need to be considered for successful implementation of inclusive education reform in the Pacific.

Mentoring programmes for students have been made ‘popular’ with the increase in New Zealand universities over the past 10 years. These programmes have targeted the groups of ‘low achieving’ students, especially those of Pacific ethnicity, who have been identified as students who need academic support. For the universities, the main priority has been to increase the academic achievement levels of the students. Mentoring has value and it is beneficial for all of those involved. However, there needs to be examination and analysis of mentoring programmes, especially with regard to the impacts. As a practitioner and theorist of mentoring, I present a personal exploration of the interpersonal relationships formed in mentoring between myself and my students so that a clearer depiction of mentoring relationships may occur for those have a keen interest with Pacific students. The nature of mentoring in a university context is challenging but with the philosophical approach of appreciative mentorship, the challenges quickly fade into the background. Mentoring as a process of relationship development is critical for the successful academic futures of Pacific students in tertiary education.

This chapter provides a survey of the dialectal interplay between global forces and local responses within Oceania. Through an examination of four key global trends, we demonstrate how globalization has introduced a new wave of educational policies, pedagogies and initiatives into Oceania’s shores. We consider four global trends that have profoundly shaped local educational responses within the region: the global ecological crisis and its effects within Oceania; the influence of historic and continuing aid relationships; the digital revolution and its mandate to connect the remote and isolated region; and the impact of accelerated mobility away from the region. Through this exploration, we then examine the dialectical interplay between these global and local policies, curriculum, teaching and learning responses through the introduction of curricular initiatives such as outcomes-based education and new platforms for curricular delivery such as Open Distance Learning. In doing so, we demonstrate how Oceania’s deep and interwoven relationality between land, ocean, geography and people powerfully shapes local educational responses to these global forces.

This chapter presents a survey of education development in Oceania, a region of diversity held together by its commonalities, shaped by the largest ocean on the planet. The chapter outlines the regional contexts of Oceania and offers a brief historical overview of formal education. Oceania, like most regions, has struggled to mediate between global agendas and national and regional aspirations for sovereignty and self-determination. The chapter recounts ongoing efforts to navigate education in the post-colonial period, efforts to negotiate some of the aspirations of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for All (EFA), and other global agendas of the early 2000s with, more recently, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this survey, we hope to demonstrate collective efforts to respond to global agendas, to shape and strengthen regionalism, while maintaining sovereignty in a globalized world. We also highlight the evolving identities of the region, in particular the relationships between Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific countries that collectively make up Oceania.

Does participation in tertiary education in Aotearoa New Zealand weaken or strengthen Samoan ethnic identity? Narratives of Pacific women graduates interviewed for a doctoral study of ethnic identity construction provide illustrations of how a process of ethnic identity formation is built up through interactions between groups and individuals within institutions where all members of society participate and come into contact with each other. Ethnic identity construction is influenced by both circumstantial situational factors and what people themselves bring into those circumstances (Cornell & Hartmann, 1998). The cultural backgrounds of this group of tertiary students are socially constructed within their families and churches. It is these backgrounds they bring with them into tertiary education contexts. The strengthening of ethnic identity, as experienced by this group of Samoan women graduate students, was unique, complex and at times contradictory.