Kombra focusing on quality

EDUCATION secretary Dr Uke Kombra wants more emphasis on quality to lift the standard of education in the country.
He called on senior education officers to be responsible, practical and to provide education for all, especially school-aged children, during their week-long conference in Wewak, East Sepik, to understand the content or purpose of education reforms.
“We know from research and reports that our literacy and numeracy indicators have been low,” he said.
“We admit that we have to lead with interventions to improve the status quo.”
“For educationists, the challenge is to improve quality education.
“We have to take steps to ensure that over the next 10 years we make big improvements capturing the national education plan’s nine focus areas with the intent that every child has access to education.”
Dr Kombra noted that if learning took place in classrooms, there needed to be resources and competent teachers there.
He also noted that many reforms over the past six years such as changes in the curriculum, abolishment of school fees, improvements to teachers’ terms and conditions, structural reforms (3-6-4 to 3-6-6) were made to address quality.
Dr Kombra said with regard to the school restructure 3-6-6 (three years of preschool, kindergarten and elementary education followed by six years of primary school and six years of secondary/high school, it was not a u-turn but refining of the structure to include early childhood education.
Challengers he set for his officers included:

• BEING pragmatic, modernise to improve productivity;
• Practising good governance and accountability at all levels; and,
• Putting the right people in – people with credibility in key positions based on merit in provinces and especially at school levels.