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Sports |
Sir Julius highlights an urgent
education need
NEW Ireland Governor Sir Julius Chan,
Member for Namatanai Byron Chan and the Member for Kavieng
Martin Aini must be commended for their renewed vigour to
provide a new focus on the development of New Ireland, in
keeping with their promises during campaigning.
Generally, that is also what most new Members of Parliament are
attempting to articulate.
Recently, Sir Julius highlighted two important plans about
education that is sound and consistent with the developmental
needs of the province, which should be supported by the National
Government.
The first is Sir Julius’ plan to create two more secondary
schools (Utu and Manggai) in New Ireland. This is a timely and a
correct decision that should be implemented by the governor
within the next five years.
Namatanai Secondary School cannot absorb all the Grade 10
students coming out of the three high schools – Utu, Manggai and
Mongop – and from the top-up schools. There is a need for more
secondary schools.
The second plan is to subsidise students’ education. This is a
sound investment as students are the future generation of Papua
New Guinea. Subsidising the education of PNG citizens till Grade
12 is educating PNG’s next generation.
In many developed countries like Australia, all school age
children must attend primary and secondary schools.
The Government meets all the costs of primary and secondary
education with the parents paying only minimal tuition costs.
The plan by Sir Julius to create two more secondary schools in
New Ireland highlights a need in many provinces throughout the
country.
Currently, there are 72 secondary schools in the country putting
out more than 10,000 students every year.
If we have a near equal and proportionate distribution of
secondary schools among the 21 provinces, all the provinces
would have to have at least three secondary schools to cater for
the school age pupils.
Following the reform system, some provinces still have only one
secondary school, not two, although there are many feeder top-up
schools in those provinces to supply secondary school intakes.
Other provinces may have the right number of secondary schools
or more to meet their provincial demand to accommodate more
students in Grades 11 and 12.
This uneven and disproportionate distribution of secondary
schools in the 21 provinces may be one important policy issue
that the new minister for education should work on to establish
a fair distribution of secondary schools throughout the country
in proportion to the population of young people needing to
complete Grades 11 and 12 in each province.
Dr John Hamau
Unitech, Lae
 
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