A bad idea, for 854 reasons.

IN ANY CONTEST between ideology and common sense, put your money every time on a victory for ideology. From Papua New Guinea comes news of the latest example of a fad running wild and roughshod over good sense, over what is in the public interest, and over what is possible.

Mary-Louise O'Callaghan, observant reporter of trouble in the South Pacific, tells us (Australian, 31st July) that Professor John Waiko, Papua New Guinea's Minister for Education, has begun a "radical reform". He certainly has. He intends to make "every one" of Papua New Guinea's indigenous languages an official language of education. Waiko is quoted: "We are making vernacular education the beginning of lifelong education for our children."

From romantic souls elsewhere, this will draw warm responses: preserving ancient diversity; resisting the relentless "flattening-out" which would follow universal adoption of English, and so on. It all sounds at first a bit like the Irish learning Gaelic, or the Quebecois preserving their French against all the rest of Canada. And truly, we cannot doubt that part at least of any people's genius, part of its soul, can only be expressed fully in its own language, and in no other.

Nevertheless, such heartwarming notions can be embraced rather too enthusiastically, and with unfortunate results. Many of us still alive recall Hitler and his precious "yolk", as well as the murderous cultural exclusivity of the Japanese. Poisonous chauvinism is not unknown in Papua New Guinea. Intensely black-skinned Bougainvilleans sometimes feel (and express) a thoroughly disagreeable contempt for all those wretched "red-skins" who inhabit the rest of Papua New Guinea.

But the real objections to John Waiko's present plans lie, not in the regions of philosophy, but of practicality. Consider the following.

Papua New Guinea does not have a vernacular language in the sense that Wales and Ireland may be said to have one. Among the five million people counted in the recent census, it has 854 languages. Let me repeat that: Papua New Guinea has 854 languages.

Not only that, but for some mysterious reason, the number seems to be growing. When Professor Waiko published his Short History of Papua New Guinea less than ten years ago, he counted (on page 129) "almost 700 languages". Where have the extra 154-plus come from in that short period?