Official says education system must work well

By PHOEBE GWANGILO
ALL levels of Papua New Guinea’s education system must work well to achieve a quality end result after higher education, a senior state official says.
Constitutional Law Reforms Commission (CLRC) secretary Dr Mangei Matui said the education system was a process and if one system failed, the whole system failed.
He said this during the launch of a review of the country’s education laws.
Giving the analogy of a manufacturing product, Dr Matui said if a stage in the manufacturing process failed, the product failed.
“Universities cannot go back and teach basic English and mathematics, they are at the higher end,” he said.
He said basics were taught at the primary and secondary school levels.
“It is done there, it goes through the process and the universities get the product and put something else into the product that eventually comes out when they graduate.
“That is the system we (CLRC) are working on.
“We are trying to fix it.
“The system must be seen holistically.”
Dr Matui said the CLRC had been tasked by the Government to do a nationwide consultation with all the stakeholders in education.
The consultation work started in Enga yesterday and will end on Sept 21 at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby.
While acknowledging the presence of the Education Department, Dr Matui raised concerns that there were no representatives from the Teaching Service Commission and the Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology.
“The law that we are going to be reviewing directly affects your line of work so it’s very important that the Education Department shows interest in what we are doing,” he said.