Perceptions of the value of traditional ecological knowledge to formal school curricula: opportunities and challenges from Malekula Island, Vanuatu

Participants reported that TEK had eroded on Malekula, and identified the formal school system as a principal driver. Most interviewees believed that if an appropriate format could be developed, TEK could be included in the formal education system. Such an approach has potential to maintain customary knowledge and practice in the focus communities. Participants identified several specific domains of TEK for inclusion in school curricula, including ethnomedical knowledge, agricultural knowledge and practice, and the reinforcement of respect for traditional authority and values. However, interviewees also noted a number of practical and epistemological barriers to teaching TEK in school. These included the cultural diversity of Malekula, tensions between public and private forms of knowledge, and multiple values of TEK within the community.TEK has potential to add value to formal education systems in Vanuatu by contextualising the content and process of curricular delivery, and by facilitating character development and self-awareness in students. These benefits are congruent with UNESCO-mandated goals for curricular reform and provide a strong argument for the inclusion of TEK in formal school systems. Such approaches may also assist in the maintenance and revitalisation of at-risk systems of ethnobiological knowledge. However, we urge further research attention to the significant epistemological challenges inherent in including TEK in formal school, particularly as participants noted the potential for such approaches to have negative consequences.The spread of western modes of formal education (defined here as institutionalised, chronologically graded, and hierarchically structured systems of education [1]) has been recognised as a key driver of global social change [2]. There are serious concerns, however, that formal education systems in some areas of the world do not adequately account for local knowledge and cultural diversity [3,4]. This results in school system