We reap what we sow

 If you are able then invest in Internet facility and provide e-learning resources but never underestimate the power of books. If you buy a vehicle then you provide transport for a few people but if you buy a book you educate a generation of people.  

Schools don’t have the operational funds to run the vehicle. If funds are used then less money is available for buying books for students learning.  

What happens to the vehicles bought for schools when the MP who used the DSIP funds lost in the election?  

The tribesmen from the losing MP’s side remove the vehicle from the school and either strip it of the parts or sell it off. Students and tea­chers are no better off in terms of quality education.  

What are the core indicators to demonstrate how PNG has fared on the quality domain? The core indicators are: (a) Pass rate, (b) Qualified Teachers, (c) Pupil per Textbook ratio, and (d) Pupil to Teacher ratio.

PNG has poor textbook per student ratio and pupil per teacher ratio.  

Qualified teachers are leaving the system for more attractive jobs and those remaining are overworked and are not provided opportunity to improve their professional development in order to deliver quality teaching. The students overall quality of learning suffers.  

A very active and professional teacher in-servicing programme at school level supported with adequate teaching and learning resources together with improved teacher’s condition of employment (salaries, leave fares and housing) would significantly enhance the quality of education delivered in the class.  

Management

In order to achieve the UBE domains of access, retention, equity and quality, management standards and practices at all levels are not only critical but an essentials prerequisite. Management plays an important role to ensure all resources; for example; finance, physical infrastructures, and teaching and learning resources are planned, managed and implemented well.  

School management consists of head teacher, the deputy head teacher and senior teachers in primary schools and high schools, include the subject masters and senior subject masters and at times teacher-in-charge.  

A good school management team needs cooperating, understanding and responsible boards, such as boards of management, board of governors or school governing council made up of wider community representatives. The school boards provide oversight roles on financial management, student and teacher’s discipline, and management of physical infrastructures.  

The role of the school management is to manage or administer and the role of the boards is to govern.  

Their respective roles and functions are distinct but complementary. The school management team is responsible for making sure the National Curriculum Statement is delivered in the classroom, while the board is to ensure that the delivery mechanism is not hindered, thereby deny students of accessing quality educational opportunity.

The head teacher has a duty to manage his/her teaching staff and ensure the teacher performs his tea­ching duty to their best ability and within their resource constraints.  

The teacher has a duty to manage his teaching programmes and ensure they are implemented according to the guidelines. He ensures effective and quality teaching is delivered within the curriculum guidelines such as the syllabus by breaking it down to daily lesson plans.

There was a worst case of a school where the management and the board colluded to mismanage public funds. The public funds were authorised to entities where they later collected their commissions and in some cases awarded contracts to entities where they have interest.  

Huge public funds were diverted by abusing their powers for selfish gains. As a result the learning opportunities for students were compromised and subsequently denied quality education. 

The perpetrators are not held accountable for their actions. PNG has condoned the bad management and governance practices to an extent where the public begin to accept this practice as part of the ‘normal’ governance protocols but with devastating consequences on quality of student learning.

It is public knowledge that monies earmarked for improving or contributing towards enhancing students learning were intercepted by signatories of the school account from the previous years at the peril of the new head teacher and the new board chairman. By the time the new signatures for operating the school account was finalised, the funds were depleted and the new board and the new management were left high and dry. The poor students fell victim and missed out on receiving a quality education. The schools continue to cry out that they have not received their Tuition Fee Free monies.  

However, no punitive actions were taken against the management and governance authorities who abused their powers to misuse or misapply the public funds.

We know of cases where the board chairman, with a band of few junior teachers and renegade so-called community leaders, deliberately marginalise or even threaten the head teacher to cooperate with their choice of a ‘service provider’ and authorise bogus payments or highly inflated cost to a ‘service provider’.  

That is how huge sums of public money have been illegally paid out.

I personally knew of cases where schools do not operate a bank account where the school board and head teacher do not even exist.  

For convenience, such schools have utilised an individual’s (landowner, local councillor, local church pastor, a village court official’s personal bank account, not in the name of the school.  

These situations may have chan­ged since I left Fincorp Haus and if that is so then all the more better for PNG. Otherwise, the account holder in such a school has a first call on the funds and the school has nothing.  

The account holder has the debit card or ‘SaveCard’ and he is the person with the PIN (Personal Identification Number) who can draw the funds at any time of the day. 

Recent findings from the nationwide School Survey Task Force confirmed that ‘ghost’ schools do exist. 

While we celebrate the positive contribution of Tuition Fee Free funds to help improve some of the critical UBE indicators, existence of ‘ghost’ schools adds further discredit to the good intentions of the government.  

The perpetrators who use the ‘ghost’ schools as a conduit to move funds away from having a positive impact on the quality of teaching (by the teachers) and learning (by the students) remain unpunished and more funds are likely to be transferred in the same manner that would negatively impact on providing quality education.  

The very practice we wanted to remove before funds were transferred to the individual school account but that didn’t happen as fast as I expected while holding the fort then because the system was resisting a reform to bring about transparent financial accountability.    

For as long as there are crooks in school managements and boards and for as long as management roles and governance functions are abused at various levels are allowed to continue with impunity, the students will be denied access to quality teaching and learning. Whenever there is poor management in school the curriculum materials (eg textbooks, consumables, and laboratory and workshop equipment, teacher professional development (in-service), quality teaching from the teachers and other specialist resources) are un­likely to be made available to en­hance students learning thereby impact on quality of education delivered. Parents and citizens or P&C as commonly known that used to play a ‘watchdog’ role in many communities that would keep the school management and boards in check are now either non-existent or their roles hijacked by the two entities.  

Wherever the P&Cs are active the school stands a better chance to keep the school management and the school boards play their designated roles and hence collectively work towards achieving quality education for their children.

If parents want quality education for their children in school, they must make an effort to have their input through P&C meetings, through their representatives at the school board of management, and through their representatives at the provincial and national education boards. 

We know many provinces do not have Provincial Education Boards (PEBs) but it is more attractive to be a member of a school board than on a PEB simply because there are no funds to access in the latter.  

Being on the school board attracts some form of ‘sitting allowance’ and other fees but more so because they can abuse school funds in collusion with the head teacher.   

Teachers have to raise their level of performance in teaching or improve their level of education and upgrade their qualification.  

Students must be receptive to the teaching and learning activities presented to them in class and be prepared to make the necessary sacrifices (attend school, pay attention in class, be prepared to work hard, and put the extra effort). Quality education can be achieved if the total sum of the many contributing factors (different players) must perform their rightful roles and responsibilities. 

Conclusion

It is a known fact that you reap what you sow. If you want quality education for your children then you must make quality decision using existing guidelines to perform your unique roles as a teacher in the classroom (pedagogic processes), as a head teacher managing the curriculum delivery processes in school and effectively  manage all the resources, as a parent paying for the cost of educating our children (uniforms, pocket money, clothing, meals, medical care, discipline, counselling etc), as a board member ensure good governance prevails to provide leadership in resource allocation (public funds) are spent on specific areas that will help contribute towards achieving the Universal Basic Education goals.

If PNG plays its cards right (manage its resources, perform its mandated duties, and applies due diligence in all decisions taken) the UBE goals of access, retention, equity and quality can be achieved.  

That is to say that if PNG is determined to achieve quality education at every level, by every player, every year, everywhere by everyone then PNG can be able to achieve UBE goals. 

However, if there are some teachers, students, parents, head teachers, school board members, and leaders at various levels who fail to play their destined roles, the best national effort is unlikely to result in achieving quality education. The UBE indicators are likely to remain unchanged or at worst deteriorate.  

The PNG Vision 2050 envisages creating a smart, wise, fair, healthy and happy society in 36 years’ time (in the year 2050). When the students are denied from obtaining a quality education opportunity by not investing to improve UBE domains of access, retention, equity, quality, and management, PNG is making a deliberate decision to create a society that may not necessarily be; smart, wise, fair, healthy and happy. 

The UBE domains and their proposed improvement in the respective indicators are critical to contribute towards creating a society which will be smart, wise, fair, healthy and happy.