Early childhood learning important

EARLY childhood education has been the key missing component in our country’s education system.
It has been overlooked by our leaders for quite a long time.
I commend the Government for recognising the importance of early childhood education in the country.
For a better-educated future, we need to set our foundations right through early childhood education which is aimed at preparing our children before they start grade 1.
The introduction of early childhood education can trigger a shift in the way teachers are trained.
Early childhood education requires teachers to be trained properly. We need qualified early childhood education and preschool teachers.
The knowledge and skills of the teachers are very crucial to get the foundation phase right.
It is important that a quality education is one of the non-negotiable requirements set for our teachers.
Our education system have been continuing to undermine quality by enrolling almost anybody they wish to in our teacher training institutions.
The constant education reforms, the education system in PNG would have improved the quality and equality of education and would have borne tangible fruits but that hasn’t happened.
It is fair to say that teacher standards are a response to a lack of teacher accountability which has been identified as a cause of the poor quality of education
For example, five years ago the government proposed to transfer grades 7 and 8 back to the high school system but failed to do so.
There is evidence of incompetent and poorly-trained primary school teachers who continue to teach grade 7 and 8 students.
It is evident that many of our primary schools offering grades 7 and 8 are poorly organised in the sense that the Government through the Education Department fails to focus on quality in terms of school facilities and specialist teachers.
The Education Department fails to restore the education system that our forefathers enjoyed in their time.
We have to take our human resource development seriously to free ourselves from our challenges.
Blaming the failure on inadequate financial resources has been the main excuse but that does not make sense especially when millions of funds are spent on our education system.
We have failed to achieve the target objectives under the constant changing education curriculum and policy changes from 3:6:6 and now to 1:6:6 and all the rubbish.
The Government continues to spend millions of kina on education but yet our lower primary education system is performing far below standards.
This clearly shows that PNG is not getting the expected rate of return on its investment in education.

Ken Nandawa
Education Adviser – Republic of
Rau’areke