New Zealand shares with other Southeast Asian nations two sets of problems which stem from the presence of several distinct communities in one geographical/political area: the first relates to treatment of linguistic minorities, indigenous and immigrant; the second is that of social or regional dialects which, while not totally distinct from an official language used in schools, are sufficiently different to cause acute problems of communication, or to become focal points of ethnic assertiveness. Several topics dealing with languages and education are explored: policy questions, reactions of authorities, principles for language planning, language and ethnicity, personality and territoriality, the fate of vernaculars, language and political unity, costs and benefits, modernization, social and political outcomes, values and value judgements, standardization of major regional and ethnic languages, and unity in diversity. It would not seem unreasonable to expect that some provision for study of minority languages such as Samoan, Greek, Polish, Cantonese, and Serbo-Croatian should be made in the New Zealand secondary school system on at least as generous a basis as that provided for children in the Maori community to study Maori in the 1940s. Whatever their form and content, "educational" policies affecting language use in linguistically diverse societies are political, not pedagogical, in essence. (BRR)