Pagelio seeks partners’ support

EDUCATION secretary Dr Joseph Pagelio yesterday called on major partners and stakeholders in education to support the Education Department take a more active role in ensuring school children in Papua New Guinea get their share of the benefits of globalisation.
Dr Pagelio said this at the opening of the first-ever education seminar which started in Port Moresby yesterday and would run for a week.
“Education is the leading agent that passes on skills and knowledge to our children beginning in elementary and while we want our children to continue to learn and value our cultural diversity, we must remember that they are part of globalisation,” he said.
Dr Pagelio said the system needed to be drastically redesigned because it developed students that lacked self-worth and were misguided.
He said it forced students to engage in self-indulging activities just to get attention, “there is an alarming increase in the rate of anti-social behaviour among students from primary school up”.
“Information and communication technology –  ICT – would play a big part in children’s global outlook and lead them to explore more interesting career pathways and options of study that they are best suited to,” he said.
Dr Pagelio said if every school took up ICT as a major part of the curriculum, then children could gain more experience and explore in order to excel or improve their learning capacity.
He urged participants that there needed to be a total revamp and redesign of the education system so that it builds good character in students.
Dr Pagelio said education surveys and observations had indicated that in the early part of this year, 50% of Grade Eight students (2008) missed out on getting a place in Grade Nine while 68% of Grade 10 (2008) missed out on the final exams to make it to Grade 11.
He also said 58% of Grade 12 students (2008) could not make it either into university or another tertiary institution.