Reforms in govt depts

Letters

THE reforms in various Government departments and agencies is pertain to municipals services and development.
In every reform, pros and cons as to the extent of impact it will have on people and the country as a whole in the long run, should be considered.
Reform in education is one such.
The country’s literacy rate is well below 50 per cent.
To add to this woe are introduction of free education and exit of grades 8 and 10 examinations.
The tuition fee-free (TFF) policy is said to relieve school fee burden for parents.
However, there is the increase in teacher to student ratio, limited classroom space for the influx of students in various grades, and various ensuing issues.
The exit of grades 8 and 10 exams sounds preferable in light of the need for today’s increasing younger population to be educated up to grade 12.
Grade 12 examinations determine entry into limited and/or bottle-necked spaces in colleges and universities.
The introduction of TFF creates sinkholes that promote and uphold ‘laziness’ among teachers, parents and most importantly the students.
The term ‘free’creates ‘laziness’.
‘Laziness’ sees a rise in all sorts of social issues among our younger generation today as never experienced before.
Social issues and petty crimes are all direct impacts of adopting and trialing failed education systems in the likes of UBE and OBE.
The truth today is a high level of educated younger generation, and less job opportunities.
When there are more learned younger persons in our societies, lawlessness is imminent.
It will require building of more prisons than schools, staffing and equipping of those prison facilities than schools, and increasing funding to prisons than schools.
Create more lower and upper secondary schools, colleges and universities around the country.
Create more job opportunities as in various downstream processing activities.
Remote Menyamya in Morobe has one secondary school which caters for more than 15 primary schools.
This year very few Grade 8 students were selected for Grade 9.
For example, Kapo Primary School last year enrolled 70 students, with only seven being selected to continue into Grade 9.
To make matter worse, there are no either flexible open and distance education (FODE or DODL) or even distance learning education centres established for dropouts.
My appeal to leaders and authorites is to really look into the issue at hand in our education system.
Bring about lasting policies to cater for our young people in schools.
Give our nation a hope and a future.

Vinson Dopenuoc
Anga West
Morobe