Introduction
The term ‘ilo is present in a number of Polynesian languages with a general translation as seeing or knowing. The terminology ‘ilo in the Tongan language refers to a body of knowledge, as in knowledge about agriculture, fishing, and weather systems. The term ‘ilo also refers to the process of finding, recognizing, and knowing. Thaman (1999) refers to ‘ilo as both the “process of knowing and to the knowledge itself.”
In the process of knowing, ‘ilo is taken to be part of a learning process, ako, with the desired outcome of a person having mastered a body of knowledge and become poto or tangata poto, a learned person (Kavaliku 1966). In the Tongan context, there is a marked difference between ‘ilo as knowledge and poto, being the use or application of ‘ilo to a particular situation – in other words, it is applied knowledge. ‘Ilo and poto and ako are three main concepts generally used to describe education in the Tongan context (Thaman 1988). Thaman (1999) further defines ‘ilo...
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References
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Fua, S.J. (2016). ‘Ilo. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_13-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_13-1
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