Les politiques éducatives et le français à l’heure du condominium franco-britannique des Nouvelles-Hébrides (1901-1980)

During the first 50 years of the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, (1901-1960), education policy towards indigenous people was massively conducted by the various Christian missions settled on the archipelago, which introduced English and French predominantly as the language of instruction and litteracy, with a large domination of English against French as a result of the major diffusion of presbyterian and Anglican missions. The development of public education towards indigenous has taken place gradually after World War II, under the initiative of France, which wanted by an extensive Education for all policy avant la lettre to reinforce the importance of French in education, whose weakness was basically a result of the weakness of the Catholic missions in the archipelago. On the eve of independence, the number of French-language schools has been increased significantly to achieve parity between languages of education, mainly with the support of public teachers coming from France. The new Nation hardly was in a position to keep such a financial effort, especially by comparing the importance of public fundings in education budget building. This paper illustrates how language policy decided by the independent Vanuatu was guided not so much by the diplomatic influence of the colonial powers but more drastically by the different budgetary principles in action within the two systems.