Education
Growing Education Woes
Up to 80 percent of Melanesian School Age Touch Not in School.
Education in the Pacific, particularly Melanesia, is a ticking time bomb, a story of failure. The symptoms are readily visible: falling literacy, high rates drop out rates and schools simply unable to cope with even the most basic teaching needs.
“Basic Education and Pacific Peoples: Changing the Priorities,” a recent report by the international aid organization Oxfam, says the education crisis is worst in Melanesia but Polynesia is declining, too. The report was prepared for New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which administers the country’s foreign aid budget.
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Says the report: “The social consequences of this crisis make a strong case for assisting our South Pacific neighbors. For 80 percent of young people a job in the formal waged economies of the Pacific remains out of reach.”
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Oxfam New Zealand executive direction Terri-Ann Scorer says a remarkable youth population bulge has occurred in the Pacific Islands with the median age now 20 and average motherhood rates of 3.5 children per woman. “Coupled with economic crises and government reforms, there simply aren’t enough basic schools to go around. This crisis is likely to result in ongoing poverty and increased social problems for Pacific youth.”
In Melanesia education levels are “frighteningly low” with less than 50 percent of adults literate and less than half of the children enrolled in primary school and less than 25 percent at secondary school. The basic education sector, and not universities, is in most need of assistance, the report said.
The report sites numerous factors behind the Pacific education crisis. These include:
• The youth population bulge that was increasing the demand for education, and the insufficient supply of adequately skilled teachers due to poor pay and conditions of the teaching profession, and a lack of in-service training. Also cited was geographic dispersion and linguistic diversity that increased the cost of providing good quality education and the political instability.
“In some Pacific countries, particularly across Melanesia, the crisis is clearly visible with low rates of adult literacy and relatively low rates of enrolment in school made worse by high drop out rates.” Oxfam says all four Melanesian countries have “extremely poor enrollment levels for secondary education, with up to nearly 80 percent of children out of school.”
• Teacher morale in the Pacific is low. “This is the result of a number of factors including the low status accorded the teaching profession, low pay, poor educational resources, poor housing, and large class sizes. In most of Pacific Islands, there is high teacher turnover with many teachers leaving the profession completely.” There was a teacher shortage and untrained or poorly trained teachers were used.
• Teachers are reluctant to go into rural areas. “In both Fiji and Papua New Guinea the annual allowance given as an incentive for rural teachers is usually less than it costs to travel to urban areas to collect one’s fortnightly pay packet. Many rural schools may not be able to offer a full curriculum given that the subjects taught are determined by what the teacher is competent in teaching and the constraints arising out of understaffing.”
• School fees, now widely required, were a huge burden for low-income families, particularly with more than one child. They also blamed the economic pressures on governments, particularly the need they felt to carry out public sector restructuring programs and the inability of low-income families to afford school fees.
• Small populations living in isolated and scattered islands suffered from poor infrastructure. “The very remoteness of some Pacific Island communities means that children of these communities do not have access to primary schools.” Rising populations of young people without access to education mean more people failing to find jobs in the formal, modern economy.
“These young people have aspirations which do not easily fit with their rural backgrounds. When they drift to the urban areas they can only eke out an existence in the informal economy,” the report says. The situation is bleak for the majority of youth from poor backgrounds, and with limited options available to them it is not surprising that many become foot soldiers in situations of unrest, or become involved in crime.
Photo: Jason Aubuchon
