Education faces hurdles to overcome

 IT seems the Education Department faces more challenges in its bid to improve and expand its performance in 2015.

With signs of discontent among schools and provincial education authorities that they are not ready to change from the Outcomes-Based approach to the Standards-Based system, the department has its work cut out over the coming 12 months. Despite a growing chorus of uncertainty, one province has boldly stated its readiness to get back to a familiar education system.

The Madang provincial education board this week declared it was ready to implement the standards based education system when the public school system started next month.

Madang provincial education board chairman Moses Sariki said all schools in his province would start implementing the system as soon as their teachers received the training. 

Sariki said a team of officials would conduct a trainers training course from February 2-15. 

One wonders why there are concerns from other provinces about the time needed to revert to the standards based system when the Madang board is allocating a 13-day programme to get its schools up to speed with the new approach.

Perhaps these are hopeful projections and the rationale of taking at least another 12 months to adjust to the SBE is the wiser course.

Either way, the government of the day has made its bed and will have to lie in it. The hastened transition from the outcomes-based approach to the standards-based one will be an interesting change to observe.

One hopes the state can manage this transitory stage in a fashion that will not short change the schools or most importantly their students.  

The school year for primary and secondary schools is set to start in two weeks and yet the previous two months, which were the holidays, had one problem or another rear is head starting with the uproar from teaching staff across the country complaining bitterly about not receiving their leave fares from the provincial and national education departments.

Many teachers either missed out on their leave entitlements altogether (which means they are still owed) while others received them too late to travel to their home provinces for the end-of-year school break.

This is just one problem that was highlighted by the media over the final two months of 2014. Of course the other problem that was written and spoken about was the extent of cheating during national exams by students particularly in the Highlands region.

Educationists such as Dr Musawe Sinabare in columns written in this newspaper said the problem was widespread and seemed to happen at every examination period.

Sinabare said students were able to buy exam answers in some provinces, tainting the Grade 10 and 12 results and causing innocent students to suffer along with the few who were cheating.

This is a serious concern among provincial education authorities. Obviously, the need to keep the system ordered and free of corrupt practices is crucial for the future of the country’s education.

A corrupt and incompetent system will only produce a poor quality product. 

Another issue that has hit the department of late has been the cry of unpaid service providers. This week contractors of the National Archives, National Libraries and RESI programmes, who were engaged by the Education Department, camped outside the national headquarters in Waigani demanding immediate payment. The contractors, numbering more than 900, say they have yet to receive payment for work they had completed months ago.

Education Secretary Michael Tapo said on Wednesday the audit report on the contracts would be ready this week to be submitted to the national Executive Council later this month. 

Although the work of the contractors will not directly affect schools in 2015, being held to account by a group of disgruntled service providers is hardly a positive start to the year.

Apart from the health of a nation, its infrastructure in roads, wharves, airstrips and bridges and law and order, the education of a people is what underpins the future of the country. 

A faulty and mismanaged system will perpetuate the problems that the country faces now in high unemployment, low productivity and corruption.