As there is considerable interaction between the school and the community, the role of the school in the community will play a decisive part in the success or failure of education in general and vernacular education in particular. Burns (1965) considers a school's responsibilities to be social, moral and pedagogic, and the success of an educational programme to be dependent upon the school's ability to enter into the life of the community and identify itself with the community's needs. The Eskimo programme in Alaska is a positive example of this, where the children are highly motivated because of high community involvement in the project (Trifonovitch, 1976). When, however, the community is dissatisfied with the school, a programme can be jeopardized as witnessed in NF where one reason for the parents in Risum- Lindholm rejecting Frisian tuition was that they thought the school was not educating their children properly (Walker, 1980b ).
- Various factors may determine the relationship between the school and the community. Spolsky et al. (1976, p. 239), for example, consider the authorities responsible for the school policy and the framework they work in to be important. They suggest three types of authorities: