Evolution Education in Papua New Guinea: trainee teachers’ views

Educated Papua New Guineans’ conceptual ecologies need to accommodate competing and conflicting traditional ethnoscientific, Western religious and modern scientific paradigms. Papua New Guinea is a constitutionally self-declared ‘Christian country’ and evolution is a controversial issue. The upper secondary school biology syllabus contains a terminating unit on evolution but the curriculum is of expatriate design and the rapid localisation of senior educational positions makes the views of indigenous teaching personnel a high research priority, particularly in the light of the current upgrading of secondary teacher training to degree level. This paper presents data arising from a study of trainee primary and secondary science teachers’ views towards evolution education. Primary science trainees were found to exhibit a poor awareness of the centrality of evolution to modern biology. For secondary science trainees, it was found that exposure to upper secondary school biology, in spite of adding little to students’ knowledge about evolution, was associated with their increasingly positive attitudes towards evolution education, as was the dual acceptance of evolution and religious belief.     

The politics of free education in Papua New Guinea

In 1981, the members of Papua New Guinea's National Assembly moved that education should become free from Grades 1 to 10 the following year. The motion was partly supported for humanitarian reasons. But in the original debate, and even more strongly during subsequent discussion and attempts at implementation, political factors came strongly to the fore. One fact which was not emphasised, when the parliamentarians originally passed the motion, was that the national government, in a decentralised system, actually had no power to abolish fees; and because of poor organisation and political rivalries, the scheme largely backfired. This paper examines the reasons why the scheme was launched, the reasons for its demise, its implications for social and inter-provincial inequality, and its effects on national-provincial government relations.     

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.     

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.     

The organisation and management of curriculum development in Papua New Guinea

This article develops a critical analysis of the international transfer of strategies for curriculum change with reference to an historical review of the Papua New Guinean experience. The research documents how international trends have — for better or worse —played a part in shaping the school curriculum and its organisational and administrative structures in this developing country. While much of lasting benefit has been achieved, it is argued that differing contextual factors are often given insufficient attention when educational ideas cross national boundaries. Relationships between the nature and control of the school curriculum and the nature and distribution of power and influence within, and across, societies are also identified as central to an understanding of the debate. In the light of this analysis, the implications of the economic pre-occupations of the 1990s and renewed international interest in modes of centralized curriculum control, are examined for Papua New Guinea and for developing countries in general.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel entwickelt eine kritische Analyse des internationalen Transfers von Strategien zur Veränderung des Curriculums and nimmt dabei Bezug auf einen historischen Rückblick auf Erfahrungen in Papua Neu-Guinea. Die Forschungen dokumentieren, was für eine Rolle internationale Trends zu einem Teil —zum Guten oder Schlechten — bei der Gestaltung des Curriculums und seiner organisatorischen und administrativen Strukturen in diesem Entwicklungsland gespielt haben. Während einerseits nicht unerheblicher dauerhafter Nutzen erreicht wurde, wird andererseits bemängelt, daß verschiedene im Zusammenhang stehende Faktoren oft nicht genug beachtet werden, wenn Ideen über Erziehung nationale Grenzen überschreiten. Beziehungen zwischen der Art des Curriculums und der Kontrolle darüber einerseits, Kontrolle und der Natur und Verbreitung von Macht und Einfluß innerhalb der Grenzen der Gesellschaft und darüber hinaus andererseits werden zudem als zentraler Punkt für ein Verständnis dieser Debatte erkannt. Im Licht dieser Analyse werden die Auswirkungen der wirtschaftlichen Prioritäten der 90er Jahre sowie erneuertes internationales Interesse hinsichtlich der Art und Weise zentralisierter Kontrolle über das Curriculum für Papua Neu-Guinea und Entwicklungsländer allgemein untersucht.

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Résumé Le présent article expose une analyse critique du transfert international des stratégies pour le changement des programmes d'étude en se rapportant à un examen historique de l'expérience de la Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée. La recherche montre de quelle manière les tendances internationales ont — pour le meilleur ou pour le pire — joué un rôle dans la conception du curriculum scolaire et de ses structures organisationnelles et administratives dans ce pays en développement. Tandis qu'un grand nombre d'avantages durables sont acquis, on prétend qu'on accorde une attention insuffisante à différents facteurs contextuels lorsque les notions d'éducation vont au-delà des frontières nationales. Les relations entre la nature et le contrôle du programme d'étude scolaire, et la nature et la distribution du pouvoir et de l'influence au sein des sociétés et à travers elles sont également considérées comme capitales pour la compréhension du débat en question. En partant de cette analyse, on examine les implications des préoccupations économiques des années 90 et du renouveau d'intérêt international pour les modes de contrôle centralisé des programmes d'étude pour la Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée et pour les pays en développement d'une manière générale.