Abstract
Donor nation funding can have a significant impact on the educational priorities of the recipient nation. In the case of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) that impact is further complicated by a complex colonial heritage that includes the dramatic specter of nuclear testing and the ongoing relationship of the RMI to the United States through a Compact of Free Association. Issues of donor funding impact educational prioritization of non-native instructional language, foreign curricular content, and Western-values based teacher training programs. While not always explicitly tied to donor funding, the values and expected educational outcomes of the donor nation are often enforced through Western accreditation standards upon which much of the donor funding is dependent. This essay attempts to highlight areas where educational values and priorities in the RMI may have been impacted by the donor nations and highlights recent attempts by Marshallese educators to assert greater control over their own educational destiny.
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Notes
- 1.
The East West Center just released a news report that starting in 2015 the US will no longer provide funding for Marshallese teachers that are not certified (have at least an AS degree). This will impact, roughly 40 % of the native Marshallese teachers.
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Sauer, P.R. (2015). No Nation Is an Island: Navigating the Troubled Waters Between Indigenous Values and Donor Desire in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. In: Brown, C. (eds) Globalization, International Education Policy and Local Policy Formation. Policy Implications of Research in Education, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4165-2_8
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