Education sector needs leadership

Post Courier .

IT HAS been a hectic five days that started off with our coverage on the attempts by the O’Neill Government to deport top lawyer Greg Sheppard, and a day later denials by the Prime Minister Peter O’Neill that there was no deportation order.
It was an issue that took up our front page on two consecutive days because we felt that the stories highlighted the excesses of government powers and how those powers can be vulnerable and subject to abuse. Even the use of the letterhead belonging to the Office of the Prime Minister of this land, somewhat for the wrong reasons we might like to add, is a concern.
Come Wednesday and we switched to education and highlighted the problems that the sector is currently facing. The fact that 17,000 students could miss out on a placing in tertiary institutions next year, courtesy of incompetency within the Education Department, should warrant the recall of parliament or even a special cabinet meeting. What is at stake is the well-being and future of this nation but our leaders don’t appear to be concerned about the seriousness of the matter.
This newspaper opted to run with another education-run story yesterday, this time detailing the alleged rot and systemic cheating at 11 secondary schools in the Highlands of PNG. Attempts by the MSU to push through assessments from the affected schools were refused and we appreciate the stand taken by the national selectors. The national selectors were not taken off the streets of Port Moresby, Lae or Rabaul and thrown into that Port Moresby hotel to select PNG’s brightest; they are seasoned academics and are experts in their craft.
Their views on the flaws they’ve discovered in the 11 schools assessments should be taken seriously by authorities and investigated.
But unfortunately the national examinations cheating scandal is not the only controversy that has engulfed the education sector, the debate about PNG’s controversial Outcome-based Education (OBE) continues its snakelike journey.
Mr O’Neill has said his bit on the 40-day ultimatum for the Education Department to replace the curriculum and the PNG Teachers Association (PNGTA) has backed him on removing it, but cautioning that the Government must make a 100 percent commitment in resources and funding to the new system.
“You can go to the classroom with bare hands to teach. Students are sharing one text book to three to four students and how are we going to get quality education like this,” said the PNGTA secretary general Ugwalubu Mowana.
So how serious is the Government in addressing the woes that are close to strangling this sector which is key to the very survival of this nation? The disappointments expressed by Archbishop John Ribat, the chair of the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG, confirm that the process to remove the OBE has been a unilateral decision by the Government – without consultation with all relevant stakeholders including the churches and even the teachers.
It is time for the Government to return to the table and to send out invitations to all stakeholders – we need the best brains in PNG sitting on that table to look for a way forward, which would benefit our students and ensure the 2013 academic year gets off on a good note and isn’t chaotic as