BY JOHN KAUMI

I WANT TO offer my observations on the serious academic shortcomings of the present PNG education system as highlighted by Bev and Vic Romanyshyn’s report [PNG Attitude, 30 November 2010].

Firstly, it has always been my belief that the introduction, a little over a decade ago, of the Tokples preschool curriculum (schooling in local vernacular) – which is compulsory for any child’s first two years of education - was a monumental tragedy. The resultant Grades 9 to 12 academic standards are proof of this.

Some university students cannot converse coherently in English, let alone write an essay up to the expected standard. Of course the politicians and well-off are not overly concerned, as their children go to school in western countries.

My heartfelt desire is for the Tokples preschool program to be abolished immediately and for children to be educated in English. There is a great disparity between children in our primary schools and those in international schools, especially in English language skills.

There is nothing wrong with our mother tongues, however teaching them should only be a subject and not the total curriculum. My parents and I and most of the Constitutional fathers of our nation were products of a curriculum taught in English by highly qualified European teachers in the not too distant past. Why did this recent quantum leap happen for the worst?

The shocking revelations in the Romanyshyn’s report are a strong indictment on those responsible for changes in the curriculum. Educating the human resource should always be of paramount interest and educating our children in English at a tender age is a ‘must’. A child’s future should never be compromised to accommodate some misguided patriotic notion.

The PNG people must be made aware of this problem in education as they hold the key to the 2012 general election and they need to elect responsible people who will make changes for the better.

In this country it is a fact that it is the politicians who hold sway and whether this is good or not is a moot point. All PNGian children should be capable of not just speaking but also writing short essays by Grade 9 in a concise English.

Secondly, I appreciate the fact that the Outcome-Based Education curriculum is a recent introduction but I venture to ask the obvious … why this paradigm shift? What happened to the core subjects of English, Maths, Science and Social Science?

The current leaders and educated citizens of PNG have passed through this curriculum. What was wrong with it? Is this nation prepared to take OBE on board? What has been OBE’s success rate in Australia, the US and the UK? Was it properly researched by PNGians before being implemented in this country or was it rammed down some subservient national educationist’s throat by some western wonderboy consultant?

The writing is on the wall, if PNGians continue to be naïve and gullible, and blindly accept anything dished out to them, we will reap what we are sowing in the not too distant future … an educationally retarded generation!

I don’t want to sound like the Grim Reaper but I love my country too much to not want it to slide down a slippery precipice brought on by the advent of OBE.

Thirdly, we obviously cannot bring back corporal punishment to schools because it is frowned upon as being politically incorrect by some nations in the global community, so perhaps a re introduction of the cadetship course to high schools will install the customary norms and ideals and discipline that formed the fabrics of our Melanesian society in our youth, something which is being eroded away by the ever changing society we live in today.  

Furthermore, students today are more militant and with this aforementioned reintroduction of cadetships, their energies, aggression or militancy, call it what you like, could be funnelled into a more profitable avenue and thus create a more responsible generation.

Fourthly, all parents and aspiring parents of this nation must be made to be more responsible in the upbringing of the fruits of their labours of love. The child that walks out the family door into the community should be a responsible and law abiding citizen.

However, if the child has not been schooled properly at home, due to negligent parents, then these irresponsible parents should also pay the price and not just the child. Laws should be made criminalising the actions of negligent parents. Children must be nurtured to be assets and not liabilities to nation building and that is the will of God!