State under fire
The National, Wednesday February 12th, 2014
By ELIZABETH MIAE
NEW Ireland Governor Sir Julius Chan has opposed the Government’s compulsory education policy, saying parents will be unjustly punished.
The former prime minister told the opening session of Parliament yesterday the Government must first ensure that there were enough classrooms and teachers to cater for the increase in student intakes.
While he commended the Government for making education one of its priorities, he did not support the policy.
“Compulsory education means there’ll be laws to punish parents (who failed to send their children to school),” he said. “How can you punish parents when you don’t have enough space for the children in school?”
He was responding to a statement by acting Education Minister James Marape earlier on about the importance of parents sending their children to school.
Sir Julius said: “If a school was to operate two classes per day, how many teachers would the Government employ? I think compulsory education will have a problem.”
He urged the Government to deal first with infrastructure and manpower if the policy was to work.
Marape (pictured) had told the House yesterday that while the free education policy was there to attract children, parents were still ignorant of it.
“They’re not bringing their children to school,” he said.
“Last year we brought in the concept of compulsory education.
“In this legislative year, we’re trying to bring the compulsory education law into promulgation.
“That will mean making it mandatory and a legislative requirement (for parents) to send children to school.”
But Marape admitted there was a lack of infrastructure and shortage of teachers.
He proposed to parliamentarians to use 20% of their District Services Improvement Programme (DSIP)funds to build education institutions in their electorates.
He urged provincial education advisers to take a head count of every child in school and start working on their education sector plans.
Marape told the House that the gross enrollment rate for last year was 78%, an increase of 4% from 2012.