Most linguists and educators these days realize that pidgins and creoles are legitimate languages, quite capable of fulfilling any role in society. But many people, including some pidgin and creole speakers themselves, still have negative attitudes towards these languages.

For example, in Vanuatu, Bislama (the local dialect of Melanesian Pidgin) has been declared the national language in the constitution. But it is reported that the current Minister of Education (from Vanuatu) has banned its use in the high schools (even outside the classroom) and in the education ministry offices.

In Papua New Guinea, English has officially been the language of education starting in primary school. Recently, an article titled “A survey of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of Tok Pisin as a medium of instruction in community schools” was published by Joseph Nidue in the Papua New Guinea Journal of Education (Volume 24, number 2, 1988, pages 214-31). He notes on page 216:

The PNG elite have developed prejudiced attitudes towards T[ok] P[isin] from the colonial administration including such groups as expatriate teachers and academics. As a result of this pro-English indoctrination, many of the indigenous elite, as well as many unsophisticated Papua New Guineas, believe that there is no real education until they learn how to read, write and speak in English. To these people, Tok Pisin is not “real” education...

The survey shows that teachers agree that using Tok Pisin would facilitate teacher-student communication, improve students’ understanding of subject matter, enable parents to participate in their children’s education and promote traditional cultural activities in the schools. Yet over 90 per cent of teachers surveyed were strongly in favour of English-only medium schools. He concludes (pp. 226-27):

The implication of this finding seems to be that teachers view English in terms of their career-related interests, and not necessarily in terms of its suitability as a medium for enabling students to improve the quality of their educational experience and development.

Joseph Nidue also found (p. 227) that the surveyed teachers were evenly divided on the question of whether learning initial literacy in Tok Pisin would make it harder or easier to learn English later. He says that this finding should be an impetus for conducting research into the effect of teaching initial literacy in the vernacular, presumably including Tok Pisin, on the later acquisition of English. (This kind of research is one of the goals of the PACE project.)

In Hawai’i, in 1987 the state Board of Education went as far as to formulate a policy saying that only Standard English (and by implication not Hawai’i Creole English) should be spoken in the classroom and all other school related settings. Many studies of attitudes in Hawai’i show a negative evaluation of Hawai’i Creole English (HCE) by both teachers and students. Six of these studies are summarized in a recent article by Charlene Sato in the University of Hawaii Working Papers in ESL (Volume 8, number 1, 1989, pages 191-216). But she also says (p. 201):

It is also important to note that all of the attitude studies were conducted in Honolulu, i.e., in an urban setting where mainland U.S. institutions and values are most pervasive. It remains to be seen what similar studies would yield in rural, working class areas... with a high proportion of native Hawaiians, or areas with a low proportion of Caucasians.

Furthermore, Charelene Sato refers to “heated and prolonged public discussion” which occurred in 1987 as the result of the Board of Education’s policy with regard to HCE in the classroom as well as an employment discrimination trial involving two local HCE-speaking weather forecasters. She notes (p. 202): “For the first time in Hawai’i’s history, positive attitudes toward the use and maintenance of HCE were explicitly endorsed by some elements in the local mass media.”