The remnants of attempts to change formalistic teaching litter the schools of developing countries. Papua New Guinea is a prime example. Education there has seen a continual process of change over the last 50 years. The reformers of the 1960s wanted to replace low-level mission schooling with a national education system to lay a foundation for an independent nation, while the population at large readily accepted increased schooling as a path to employment. In the 1970s and 1980s, further reforms attempted paradoxically both to modernise the curriculum and to make schooling more relevant to village life. Planners came to understand that the most likely long-term future for most school leavers was in the village, but lack of public acceptance was a key factor in the failure of many relevance reforms, while classroom reform efforts failed to replace formalistic teaching. There is little evidence to suggest that another round of education reform persevered with since the early 1990s has succeeded in generating classroom change.