Any critical analysis and assessment will agree that education is crucially essentially towards reducing poverty, most directly because, education affects the earning power of the poor and disadvantaged. But a new situation has arisen in Papua New Guinea whereby the government’s drive behind those who are outside the formal education sector seems to lack tangible vision and policy approach. This is to say that the government is not investing heavily in informal and non-formal education which will give the unfortunate group more legitimate earning power in their productive years than if they have received little or no education.
In most developing countries one will find that the average income of the urban employed youth population increased linearly with the number of years of education, whereas the average income of those with fewer years of education were just slightly above the poverty line. This relationship between educational attainment and income level may be explained by the fact that those with less education tend to be concentrated either in the informal sector or in the lowest rungs of the formal sector.
Hence, the widening income differentials within the occupational structure, particularly the increasing gap between the wages of skilled workers or in this case the formally educated and informally educated, reflect in large measures, the widening disparities in educational attainment. In addition, better-educated people tend to participate in societal institutions and political, economic and social life to a greater extent than the less educated or undereducated. They are also less prone to engage in antisocial behavior such as crime and violence. Because of these variations, education must also be the cornerstone of the unfortunate school leavers and dropouts and shelf taught individuals.
Although there are some synchronized achievements in the informal and non-informal education, enormous problems still remain. For instance dropping out of school is commonplace in Papua New Guinea; with only less the number of those who start primary education ever complete it, whilst repeating grades is also very common. What then appears is that enrollment at the secondary level lags far behind primary enrollment. Even then education quality, especially in the public schools are generally agreed to be poor. As a result, most students perform significantly poor in terms of standardized achievements.
The government may claim that it spends millions on education every year. But in terms of quality and quantitative output are not commensurate with the spending. There may be other factors like poorly managed and highly inefficient educational systems, antiquated teaching methods and a resistance to change have together yielded poor educational outcomes, which do not position Papua New Guinea to contend successfully in today’s demanding and competitive world. As a result, the school leavers and dropouts are so caught up and bearing the brunt of the system’s inadequacies and failures.
In Papua New Guinea many physical conditions of the schools are appalling that amounts to the discontinuity of formal education. There are sometimes no proper classrooms, no desks, no better libraries, no electricity, no water supply, land compensation problems and hectic absence of teachers. But with the abysmal infrastructure denying adequate progress, the poor rural populations are always disadvantaged. This has led to many school leavers and dropouts, especially from the rural areas and average income earners unprepared to take on the challenge of being properly educated. Sometimes they cannot even afford relatively modest amounts of school fees. As a result, most school leavers and dropouts who has some weaknesses in theoretical learning but posses enormous potential in practical learning are then prematurely entering the labor force or being denied the opportunity to continue.
However, at this point in time there are considerable disagreements and agreements in Papua New Guinea on education reforms. These debates seem to focus more on formal education while little emphasis is given to the informal and non-formal education by way of offering acute alternatives towards a paradigm shift. In general, there is a perceived need to improve dramatically the efficiency of educational systems, to upgrade significantly the quality and quantity of the education offered and to correct the manifested inequities in the provision of educational services. Although, the goal of greater equity in education is being pursued in a number of ways, the immediate areas that need equal attention are the informal and non-formal education bracket.
For Papua New Guinea, if there are significant reforms being pursued than there should be system wide reforms, anticipating greater returns, since the school leavers and dropouts bear the brunt of disproportionate burdens of educational systems current deficiencies. It has been a while since the so called reforms were introduced and several stones lay unturned leading to more curiosities and questions as to whether or not strategic reforms are also targeting the informal and non-formal education. This is an important debate because for so long the reformation processes and dimensions towards getting them back on track are somewhat vague and lacks substantive planning and policy direction on the part of the government.
The people in Papua New Guinea really do appreciate the kind of efforts put behind Open Campus, Institute of Distance and Continuing Education, and other initiatives by the government backed education providers. But one area that the government and the proponents of reforms, should also be pushing for in terms of informal and non-formal education is the objective of refining and strategizing the technical institutions and private schools to adequately accommodate the school leavers and dropouts. Whilst there may be some progress in the current technical schools, the Department of Education must realize the much-needed innovative approaches towards the vocational schooling. This is vital since new mechanisms will trigger off potential human capital that are becoming redundant and corrosive. Hence, complacency on any new reform measures must be strongly avoided..
More and more early school leavers and dropouts are finding their way into vocational centers and other further training institutions and the level of intakes has steadfastly increased overtime. It would be very interesting to find out what major changes or reforms has occurred in terms of vocational schooling. On observation alone, two worrying factors remains to be answered. Firstly, the most demanding informal and non-formal education schooling is not only private but also very expensive to enroll. In this case, the access to education is being sharply reduced to a privilege, where realistically, money dictates as to whether or not there is continuity for the already unfortunate school leavers and dropouts. Secondly, there seem to be no strong mechanisms to accommodate globally oriented advancements, reforms and visions in the government backed vocational and technical schools, although competency based training and the introduction to trade testing are some achievements.
Today, the velocity of world developments, new global trends and advancements, the transactions and technology transfers are overriding shortsighted visions and confined reformation processes. Thus, the need to competently revitalized vocational schooling and offer better incentives to the school leavers and dropouts are becoming a matter of urgency. The government must be honest as to whether or not these issues are paramount to the growth of Human Capital Development. For far too long such circumstances have denied these school leavers and dropouts, who are mostly youths in Papua New Guinea. Hence, it would not be fair to only support the mainstream formal schooling and having bigger debates when various other important components of the education sector needed some serious attention.
What are the major policy approaches on informal and non-formal education? The public at large must know as to whether or not there are significant reforms in those particular areas. The Department of Education must spell out and develop specific education reforms in this equally vital sector of education. The school leavers and dropouts must be assured whether informal and non-formal education fall within the parameters of education reforms, incentives and what efforts are underway to keep up with the private schools targeting and offering to legitimize the school leavers, dropouts and shelf taught individuals who may posses some degree of competency and untapped potential.
Whilst there may be other contingency approach to absorb the informal and non-formal education, the vocational schooling in a developing country like Papua New Guinea can still hold the intrinsic solution to so many answers in technical and further education development. For instance, the successful vocational school programs in motor mechanic, plumbing, spraypainting, welding, carpentry, joinery etc; whilst producing an endless number of graduates must now be improved to a more advanced stage. It would be a good challenge to also introduce programs like computing under information technology, clerical, tourism and hospitality, salesmanship, marketing, business management, basic accounting and bookkeeping, secretarial studies, shoe making, environment conservation studies, theatre arts, graphics designs, textiles designs, drawing, arts and crafts design, modeling, shipping management, agriculture, fishing, music, foreign languages, advances cooking, first aid, photography and so forth.
For Papua New Guinea to skillfully advance, informal and non-formal education must be equally given the utmost priority. Most of the courses mentioned are now managed by private schools and are not within the reach of the average Papua New Guinea parents. Hence, the government must take initiatives to make amendments to the provision of specific educational programs targeting the informal and non-formal education sector in Papua New Guinea. The private schools are providing a window of opportunity but should be subsidized by the government to reduce the school fees. It must now become a government driven priority to build and enhance the management of technology transfer and provision of technically advanced training. It must also be the government’s business to drive them into the mainstream intellectual currents for the purpose of symbiotic progress and growth.
In the long term there should me more establishments of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Training institutions in almost all the provinces. The government driven management of informal and non-formal education in the country will relieve most unfortunate youths of ill conceived living and definitely increase their degree of earning and productivity. With the establishment of TAFE, the Education Department and the Minister responsible can move through proper legislations for all vocational schools operating in various provinces where there are Technical schools to merge forming one institution, thus offering, perhaps more diploma courses.
The trend is quite clear soon or later the process of Grade 8 dropouts and leavers will be phased out. Furthermore, Papua New Guinea might end up with a lot of Grade 12 school leavers and dropouts. Hence, how then do we bring all these advanced students back to the vocational schools? It would be a wiser choice to merge the vocational and technical colleges with the introduction of advanced programs to accommodate in that context. This will see an opportunity for further studies concurrent with real employment and shelf employment oriented programs as well as affordable education for the already unfortunate. Hence, the Education Department needs to introduce reforms in these areas through tailored programs powered by TAFE in providing greater opportunities and leverages to the unfortunate. Otherwise all the private schools should come under government funding as they have successfully trained thousand and thousand of students outside the mainstream who are also equally qualified. This will seriously have an impact on the school fees currently imposed, because most private schools have met the requirements of the National Training Council and have been very independent but needs strong government support to address the huge number of unfortunate men and women leaving schools.
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