Division ready to move after talks with provincial govt

THE New Ireland education division is ready to move forward after talks with the New Ireland government and the provincial administration on Thursday.
Governor Sir Julius Chan, in a call out to re-prioritise education as a pivotal sector, invited the provincial education board to a meeting in Kavieng.
The key issue raised was the standard of education in the province and how to improve it.
Findings included a lack of qualified teachers teaching in all schools, a lack of school inspections to police standard and quality in schools, a lack of school infrastructure to accommodate the growing number of students, funding and constraints requiring improved management and financial training for school principals to maintain quality administration.
Chairlady Dr Kappa Malpo touched on the need to improve the province’s min rating index (MRI) which is the performance average of students per school.
“We should aspire to give our best to each individual student if we are to see an improvement in our MRI’s,” she said.
“The MRI’s have a correlation with the quality of teachers we have in our schools.
“We need qualified teachers and we should endeavour to get all teachers to bachelor level.”