Students didn’t fail, Govt did: Marape

THERE is no failure among students in the Papua New Guinea education system, Education Minister James Marape said.
“The only failure is the Government and the system for not being able to provide space for all our students,” Mr Marape said during the launching of the West New Britain 10-year education plan in Kimbe last week.
The “Striving for a better sustainable system” plan was brought in on a canoe to the Independence Park in Kimbe which Mr Marape received, saying that more must be done to absorb students into Grade Nine, or to continue their learning and technical and vocational education training was the best way forward.
“There is a need for more technical schools. In fact, I want to see a technical school in every province,” he said.
“The Government will be a failure if it does not provide our students with the right pathways to prepare them with the appropriate life skills to live productive and useful lives in their communities.”
Mr Marape challenged the provinces to take stock of where they were now in terms of implementing their previous education plans and to ensure that all stakeholders worked together to implement and work towards the goals outlined in the education plans.
He urged the provinces to report on what they had achieved in the past decade and to use the limited resources to make the education system work and establish the proper partnerships to make the plans work.
Mr Marape said the provinces must ask themselves how they could spread the positive influence to the young people and consequently to the communities and to PNG that was consistent with their education plans.
The launching of the West New Britain education plan would be the 13th PEP that had been launched.
Education secretary Dr Joseph Pagelio said about 15,000 children in West New Britain were still not in schools and challenged parents to do something about enrolling them.
Dr Pagelio said for this to happen, the communities and all stakeholders must work together to establish 21 primary schools and 11 elementary schools every year to cater for the students still out of school.