Financial constrains is a factor affecting quality education

Letters

QUALITY education is an education that is relevant and adapted to the needs of the society that can meet the standards in health, growth, and physical survival in a complex and globalised world.
It implies education that is worthwhile, and which empowers the recipients with relevant skills, knowledge, ideas, values and attitudes needed for him /her to make informed decisions and live a self-sustaining life.
If a society expects quality manpower for rapid development and transformation, quality education is a must-do affair because quality education is expected to address critical issues like the dignity of labour, quality leadership and committed citizenship, industrial harmony, political stability, religious tolerance, self-reliance and security among others.
Quality higher education entails that the products of institutions of higher education should be able to perform according to expected standard and compete favourably with their peers in other countries of the world.
Education without quality can even be more dangerous than no education, stressing that without quality, the country will continue to produce unproductive graduates of no value in the community or at the workplace
There are several factors that posture as challenges of quality: among them are insufficient financial support at the institutional level.
Inadequate funding is the most-critical challenge that has threatened the attainment of good quality education as evident in the TFF policy and the way TFF funds are used.
We cannot blame the Government for failing the TFF policy.
Blame the Education Department for failing the Governments’ policy by not engaging education officers at provincial level to coordinate and monitor how funds are used in every school by implementing periodic compliance audits across all schools.
In remote schools like in Erave district in Southern Highland, there is evidence of many ghost teachers.
Ghost school boards have been receiving TFF funds for non-existing or closed schools for years.
This is the work of corrupt district education officers who knowingly approve the existence of ghost teachers, ghost school boards with ghost accounts and falsified school data to benefit from the TFF funds – usually a bigger portion for being a major role player in the TFF fund exploitation.
In the case of higher learning institutions, the problem of inadequate funding of universities and colleges has been a nuisance to human resource development in the country.
It is seen as a major constraint to attaining quality academic excellence, resulting many of the country’s tertiary institutions struggling to operate and work under difficult circumstances.
Funding constrains in past years is evident by dilapidated and insufficient facilities and infrastructure in every state-owned tertiary institution in the country.
The recent increase in enrolment fees for 2019 academic year by the University of PNG and more so by private institutions is aimed at improving many of the above issues.
It is a wake-up call for parents to start saving money, or else prospective ‘university material’ will eventually become ‘bush material’ and remain in the village for failing to meet university admission fees.
We must know that survival in the 21st Century and beyond lies in the country’s ability to produce applied and theoretical knowledge in science, technology and humanities.

Yaporolo Hali
Kika-Mene
Education Advisor

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