GOVERNANCE OF EDUCATION IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA: THE ROLE OF BOARDS OF GOVERNORS

Boards of Governors have been in existence since the early 1970s as part of Papua New Guinea's effort to allow local participation in educational decision-making. This study investigates their role in the governance of provincial high schools in Papua New Guinea. From the findings, lessons that can be learnt by those who are intending to introduce school governance at the individual institution level have been stated. The data were obtained through a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, observation of meetings, and document analysis. Participants included principals, teachers, students and community representatives. In general the Boards are involved in administrative functions only. They are not involved in the main technology of the schools: teaching and learning. It is recommended that consideration be given to delegating some curriculum powers to the Boards. Further, training is required for principals and Board members to strengthen the Boards' effectiveness.     

Community development and the primary school teacher in the developing world: An analysis of recent trends in Papua New Guinea

Since Independence in 1975, one of the main roles of the primary school teacher in Papua New Guinea has been to promote community development. Recent policy, however, is aimed at making community development the central focus of primary teaching. This paper argues that such an orientation is likely to result in community discontent, the creation of restrictions on the extent to which worthwhile lifelong learning can take place, and failure to lay the groundwork for a technically orientated economy. Recent policy aimed at giving primary school teachers a major role in out-of-school community development is also inappropriate given the limited nature of teacher training candidates, the nature of the teaching environment, and the nature of Papua New Guinea society.     

Rhetoric,Reality and the Practicum: Reconstructionism,behaviourism and primary teacher education in Papua New Guinea

Between 1986 and 1996, 14 cohorts graduating from a Papua New Guinea Teachers' College were sent out to community schools (called primary schools in Australia). They were sent out to take up the awesome burden of educating children in what has been called 'the grim reality' of the classroom in the Third World. They have had to carry the burdens of numeracy, literacy and resource development in a country that is essentially non-numerate, non-literate and without development of its huge natural resources potential. In that time, the Bougaineville conflict has put paid to assumptions that any such development would happen as a matter of course. The recent drought has further intensified the pressure on very limited resources. The findings of this study of the practicum in five primary schools in one of the provinces of Papua New Guinea suggests that the very course that the teachers have undertaken to equip them for that burden has let them down.     

Language and mathematics: A comparison of bilingual and monolingual students of mathematics

It is argued that bilingual students should not be categorized as a unidimensional group. Their level of competence in each language is important if academic activity is considered. As an example of this, results from the present study indicate that Papua New Guinea bilingual students competent in both their languages scored significantly higher on two different types of mathematical tests compared to collegues who had low competence in their languages. Further, there was some indication that bilingual students competent in both languages performed better than monolingual students, even though the monolingual students attended schools that had many more teaching resources. Such results were seen as support for the new Papua New Guinea govemment policy of using students' original languages in school. The use of the students' original languages may also open the way for easier access to traditional mathematical concepts in classrooms.     

Beyond Dependency Theory: A postcolonial analysis of educating Papua New Guinean high school students in Australian schools

This paper explores the social and educational implications of the Secondary Schools Scholarship Project (SSSP) in which Australia gave over 1,000 adolescents from Papua New Guinea three-year scholarships to study in Australian high schools. Drawing from postcolonial theory, the paper uses concepts of ambivalence, hybridity, hegemony, contradiction, and national discourse to analyse an array of issues which would not be in the purview of dependency theory. These issues include not only the cultural “border-crossings” and tensions experienced by the Papua New Guinean scholarship winners during their Australian sojourn and return to Papua New Guinea, but also the complex ambiguities in the outcomes and implications of a foreign aid project for a decolonising country. The scholarship programme illustrates the politics of foreign aid in education, including the contradictions of receiving aid from a donor country which is garnering substantial benefits from the recipient country, and the complexity of the postcolonial challenge of utilising this aid in a way that meets national educational goals in a globalising world.     

Addressing Factors Affecting Ongoing Professional Development in Community Teachers’ Colleges in Papua New Guinea

The concept of sustainable professional development in the context of community teachers’ colleges in Papua New Guinea is reviewed, with particular reference to the Papua New Guinea Community Teachers’ College Lecturers’ Professional Development Project. Seven obstacles to sustaining professional development are described, and strategies are suggested for building on the achievements of the Project in relation to personal professional development of lecturers and the review of institutional programmes and procedures.     

Community School Leadership Development in Papua New Guinea: perspectives for change

Community school personnel in Papua New Guinea are expected to undertake an increasingly complex leadership role in making education more relevant to the needs of the community, yet current administrative training does not acknowledge this leadership perspective. In the light of this changing role, the current model for the in‐service development of community school leaders in Papua New Guinea appears limited theoretically. This is because existing programmes are inadequate epistemologically and do not fully equip community school leaders with the knowledge required to cope with educational change. Existing programmes are based on a technical rationality which serves bureaucratic purposes rather than contributing to teacher empowerment and organisational reward. A new approach is required which recognises the increasing complexities of community school leadership and which links leadership training with the process of professional development.     

Assessment and the ‘vocational school fallacy’ in Papua New Guinea

A Papua New Guinean innovation attempts to broaden the basis of secondary schooling to include practical community-oriented work, whilst avoiding the dangers identified in Foster's ‘vocational school fallacy’ thesis. The evidence suggests that tensions between the vocational/community dimensions of the project and the academic were increasingly resolved in favour of the latter. This arose from the difficulties of implementing new assessment techniques, together with pressures to maintain academic standards, and from teachers' conceptions of ‘legitimate’ schooling. However, in Papua New Guinea, aspects of the culture of schooling and of the culture of village communities provide more support for such innovations than in many other     

‘Education for equality’ and ‘education for life’: examining reading literacy and reading interest in Papua New Guinea primary schools1

Reading literacy and reading interest was examined in four primary schools in Papua New Guinea: in an international, suburban, settlement and village school. In this paper we present a summary of findings located within a local context and examine the implications as viewed through two lenses. From an ‘educational for equality’ perspective, the findings suggest a critical need to re‐evaluate the use of national testing to select children for further education and address the serious shortage of reading books in school libraries. From an ‘education for life’ perspective, the findings indicate a continuing need for community‐based actions together with innovative teacher education programs aimed at developing ways of strengthening the connections between home and school.     

The changing agenda in teacher education in Papua New Guinea

This paper presents a critical analysis of, and a practical response to, teacher education imperatives shaping the politics, policy, structure and operation of Community Teachers Colleges in Papua New Guinea today. Present Papua New Guinea educational realities call for a rethinking of the political socialisation that has characterised Community Teachers Colleges in the past. The evidence suggests that the predominantly unreflective (basic skills/behavioural objectives), centralised approach which has come to characterise the administration of Teachers Colleges, inhibits the capacity of teacher educators for the now essential task of developing ‘critical and analytical thinking’ in relation to college governance and program development and delivery. The approach taken to professional development is that of the Papua New Guinea (Primary) Teachers College Lecturers Professional Development Project (1990-94), in which critical understandings are developed in relation to the current and emerging needs and demands on Teachers College graduates. The Project approach has been developed so that Project experiences can be transformed into a self-sustaining professional development cycle.     

Learning mathematics in a second language: A problem with more and less

An investigation into the development of the understanding of the relational terms more and less when used in a mathematical setting is described for two distinet groups of children. The first is a group of Papua New Guinean children attending government schools in Papua New Guinea; English isthe second language for these children. The second is a group of expatriate children attending international primary schools in Papua New Guinea. English is the first language for these children. The language of instruction in both school systems is English. In all, 376 Papua New Guinean children in grades 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, and 255 expatriate children in grades 2, 4, and 6 were given a test in which the words more and less were used in different contexts. Although analysis of errors suggested that Papua New Guinean and expatriate children tended to make qualitatively similar errors, substantial differences were found in the grade levels by which class mastery of a given meaning could be assumed, with the Papua New Guinean children lagging from 2 to 4 years behind their expatriate contemporaties. This difference appears to have serious educational implications for the learning of elementary mathematics in Papua New Guinea.     

English community school teacher education and English as a second language in Papua New Guinea: a study of a practicum

This article explores community (primary) school teacher education in the subject, English, at a Papua New Guinea (PNG) teachers' college as manifested in end‐of‐year English lessons in practicum rounds of pre‐service community school teachers. English is the official language overlaid on 700 indigenous languages in this country where reconstructionism informs policy decisions. Given this, the importance of success in English in schools is not to be underestimated. The research focuses on the implementation the knowledge, skills, strategies and materials acquired by pre‐service English teachers in a coastal province in PNG in the context of a number of public statements on educational policy and practice. It examines the impact of these as indicated in lesson plans and supervisors' reports.     

The Professional Development of Teacher Educators in the Developing World: a consideration of recent developments in Papua New Guinea

This paper addresses the matter of the extent to which efforts aimed at the professional development activities of community (primary) school teacher educators in one developing country, namely, Papua New Guinea (PNG), correspond to the subjects’ own perceived professional needs. The general background is outlined first. Then the results of a study of a group of Papua‐New‐Guinea‐teacher‐educators’ perceptions of their professional needs, as accessed through semi‐structured interviews are presented in order to gain a preliminary indication of the appropriateness of recent developments aimed at the professional‐isation of teacher education in the country and to suggest some further developments which could be set in train. Finally, the importance of establishing a national association of teacher education is highlighted.     

Views on the philosophy of science among undergraduate science students and their tutors at the University of Papua New Guinea: origins,progression, enculturation and destinations

Using a schedule originated by Nott and Wellington to explore science teachers’ views on the philosophy of science, data were gathered at the University of Papua New Guinea. Similarities in response were established for successive first year intakes of science undergraduates (1999–2000). Students with experience in national high schools or Australian high schools responded more positively than their provincial secondary school trained peers to items indicating that the findings of scientific enquiry were universally true. A cross‐sectional analysis showed the undergraduates in the third and fourth years to be more process orientated than the first or second years. Both the first and second years were different in their views compared with their tutors in the relativism–positivism scale, where they were more positivist, the contextualism–decontextualism scale, where they were less decontextualist, and the process–content scale where they were considerably less process orientated. Those with a preferred career destination of medicine were slightly more decontextualist in outlook while being marginally realist, those with a preferred physical science career being very weakly instrumentalist. The results can be interpreted in terms of respondents’ experiences in secondary schooling and on programmes at the University of Papua New Guinea.     

Mother tongue-based bilingual education in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG), an independent state in the southwest Pacific, is the most linguistically diverse country in the world. Its roughly six million people speak over 800 distinct languages. In spite of this diversity, in 1995 the Papua New Guinean government established a mother tongue-based bilingual education programme in which community languages are taught as a subject and used for instruction in the first three?years of formal education. English is introduced as a subject in the third year of school and becomes one of the languages of instruction, with the community language, in early primary. In grades seven and eight, teachers use only English for instruction, although community languages can still be used informally. By the early 2000s, over 400 languages were being used in PNG??s formal education system. This paper describes the background to PNG??s bilingual education programme, then provides an overview of its main features and the positive outcomes as well as the problems encountered since it was initiated 15?years ago.     

Explaining mathematics achievement of mature internal and external students at the University of Papua New Guinea

This paper explains the variance in matriculation mathematics achievement of mature internal and external students at the University of Papua New Guinea. The 1984 and 1985 intakes of the Preliminary Year and Matriculation Studies were taken as samples. Six instruments were developed and administered. Data were analysed using path analysis. Over 40% variance in mathematics achievement was explained both for internal and external students. Background variables seem to be more important in the learning of mathematics compared to mediatory variables for external students than the internal students.The author conducted the research for this Short Communication, when he was holding a position of Senior Lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea, Waigani, Papua New Guinea.     

COST ANALYSIS AND ITS USE IN SIMULATION OF POLICY OPTIONS: THE PAPUA NEW GUINEA EDUCATION FINANCE MODEL

The article describes the structure and operations of a computer simulation programme used in Papua New Guinea that was developed with technical assistance from UNESCO. By establishing baseline data on student enrolments, teacher posts and costs of education at different levels, the model can be used to simulate various policies under consideration and provides output on the likely effects on student flows, teacher requirements and total costs over a ten-year period. The article describes the operations of the primary school model and highlights some of the policy options that can be simulated. It is country-specific but the purpose is to inform readers of how such a programme is helping planners to improve planning and policy-making in a developing country. The author, from Papua New Guinea, worked closely with the UNESCO expert in building the model.     

Supporting families: a nurturing teacher education strategy in Nauru

There has been little recent documentation concerning Pacific family support for family members locally involved in university study in their Pacific home country and how such responses affect both parties. Some studies dealing with family support for student family members, including Pacific families residing in the USA, have been published. A New Zealand Ministry of Education report on Pasifika students’ educational success rates raised the need for effective family support contexts. Another study researched the family support negotiation patterns of mature-age part-time students in Australia, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea. Only one University of the South Pacific research focused on Pacific family and community expectations of family members studying and residing with their families in their Pacific home countries. This Nauru-based study describes mixed support responses from Nauruan families towards their teacher education student family members and Nauru Department of Education student engagement and well-being development strategies.     

INSET: prospects and practice in developing countries

Recent years have witnessed considerable growth of emphasis in the inservice education and training of educational personnel. It has come to be generally accepted that the pace of social and educational change makes preservice training an inadequate basis for long‐term professional competence, and that inservice training is an essential instrument for updating and upgrading staff. In contrast to preservice training, inservice courses can often be more easily related to the practicalities of the education profession, and several models of inservice training avoid removing staff from the workforce. Inservice practices are not usually without problems, however, many of which may be logistical and financial constraints arising from the decision to cater for trainees in their workplaces rather than in one central location.

This paper highlights some of these issues by reference to the experience of several less developed countries, and in particular by reference to practices in Papua New Guinea. For over a decade, university inservice courses have been organized in Papua New Guinea for school teachers and a variety of educational administrators. These programmes were developed independently of ‘main stream’ thinking on INSET, but analysis of their operation within a more general and contemporary theoretical context sheds useful light on issues of international interest.     

Science education research in Papua New Guinea 1978–1990

This paper presents a science/science education bibliography, to assist science educationalists interested in Papua New Guinea. 392 articles were reviewed. The bibliography was then categorised in a number of ways to indicate patterns of research productivity in various areas of science education, and at different levels of education. A questionnaire was devised to obtain information from former and current researchers in the field about their own contributions. This exercise produced some surprising information about science education research in Papua New Guinea. Specializations: science teacher education, chemical education, science education in developing countries, educational issues.