Govt putting more effort into training better teachers

Youth & Careers

THE government through the Department of Education has undertaken a number of reforms to improve the quality of teacher training and education in the country but a lot more still needs to be done, says Secretary Dr Uke Kombra.
“We have increased teacher qualifications from certificates to diploma with three years of training rather than two years,” said Kombra at the inaugural National Planning
Consultative summit in Lae last week.
He said the government has established five new teachers’ colleges.
“All our entries into primary teacher training colleges are grade 12 school leavers.
“We have institutionalised the elementary teacher training programmes.”
He said the government was putting more emphasis into science and maths and has approved the establishment of a teachers’ college in Rabaul to train maths and science teachers for secondary schools.
“Under curriculum reforms, we have rolled out the new elementary standard-based curriculum
(SBE) and phased out the outcome-based education (OBE),” Kombra said.
“The same is currently taking place in primary and lower primary but we have yet to train teachers.”
He said there are still many setbacks in terms of results and academic performance in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
“From the 16 grade 12 subjects that were examined – chemistry, biology and advanced maths – were below the 50 per cent average mark,” he said.
“If we really look at it, our science and maths performance is not good enough.”
Kombra said the five areas which needed improvement were the quality of teachers, the quality of schools, the curriculum, the students and the learning outcomes.
He said the medium-term development strategy should take into account all five interventions when planning for the next five year.
He proposed that the funding for education be consolidated to achieve maximum outcome.
“Currently a lot of money is coming into education through the provincial and district improvement programmes, directly from the national budget and as funds from development partners.”