School Gardens in Vanuatu—Promoting Local Traditional Knowledge and Agricultural Resilience

Urban Farm DB summary

This paper investigates how school gardening contributes to the re-valorization of local knowledge and the decolonization of the educational system in Vanuatu. An empirical study in five secondary schools on Efate and Tanna islands, combined with curriculum analysis and participatory observation, revealed that most students regularly work in school gardens, cultivating various crops using mixed cropping and fallow land. Students are familiar with the yam seasonal calendar, but while sustainability topics are in curricula, discussions of traditional worldviews are lacking. School gardening enhances agricultural resilience, connection to land, kastom, and food sovereignty, leading to recommendations for stronger inclusion of local knowledge, field trips, and collaboration with kastom schools.