Kids need to stay in school

By DULCIE OREKE             
PAPUA New Guinea’s new government will have challenges to improve education, a senior education official says.                   
PNG Teachers Association general-secretary Ugwalubu Mowana said the two main areas to promote basic education were ensuring an increase in student enrollment figures and retention rate.
He said the previous government’s fee-free policy and Universal Basic Education required all children aged six and above to be in school.
In order to achieve this, the new government’s challenge would be to ensure all students were in school and remained in school, he said.
Mowana said another challenge would be to create a more conducive learning and teaching environment for students and teachers. This would help student retention.
“The new government must ensure that children are in school and they are there all the time,” he said.
For that to happen, financial support was required and improvement in infrastructure, teaching and learning material, teacher training, inspector numbers and teachers’ terms and condition, he said.
Mowana said the association would be observing how the government would help people reach higher in terms of human development.
An educated population should lead to a healthy population which in turn increased productivity, he said.
He lauded the free health policy introduced by the previous government.