Reform our Education System
I've been carefully watching the trend in todays society regarding our education system and its results on our future generation. First, more and more students with potential to further their studies are being pushed out of the system every year. In 2020, we have almost 30,000 grade 12s and only 9,000 secured a space in tertiary institutions leaving the 21,000 with nowhere to go. Second, our young people nowadays don't read. Ask any university student if they read and completed a book written by a local writer and they'll give you a no for an answer. We have university graduates who cannot even get their spelling and grammar correct. Third, our young people today don't have a full sense of identity and belonging. We don't fully know our own history! We don't even know the names of most of our local heroes and historical figures, yet we know all the Hollywood stars. Below are some areas I believe the PNG education system needs to consider.
1. Create Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurial skills courses to be taught as compulsory high school subjects. (Too lazy to create more tertiary space. So, equip students to be able to go into business if they fail to make the mark in this ridiculously competitive system).
2. Create reading courses to be taught as compulsory primary school and high school subjects. Reprint and supply all schools nationwide with PNG authored books. Every PNG student should complete reading almost all works written by PNG authors. The course should require students to read and write book reviews. It should be tailored according to each grade and level.
3. The PNG Government should fund a project to rewrite the history of PNG. Our history was written by outsiders and does not fully cover our journey as a Nation. The rewritten history should be tailored and taught at the primary level. Every young Papua New Guinean growing up should know his/her history and have a sense of identity! All our local heroes should be known to us all.
Communication Enthusiast
4 年Well said. You just hit the nail on the head with your article. It is evident that we as young Papua New Guineans do not have the slightest idea about our history from the national level to local level(yes we know the most famous dates like 1975 and what had occurred but not every little detail). Hence we lose our identity as people of this nation because we do not know our own history. Our ancestors were story tellers and they told stories through every day activities. Whether it be a Bubu in a village in the NGI region telling stories to his Bubus about the masali that lives in the river. Or an aunt in the Southern Region telling stories of how the beautiful queen Alexandra thrives in the forest through the art of making tapa cloth. Or that uncle in the Momase region telling stories to his kandres of how his ancestors fought as warriors through the beating of his kundu drum. Or that chief in the Highlands region telling stories to his clans men through the art of slaughtering pigs, of how unity was what kept the tribe strong and closely knitted. Let's revive that art of story telling because I believe as a nation it is within our bloodstream to do so. We learn as well as teach through the art of storytelling.
Crimes Reporting
4 年Well put mate, distinguished PNG authors like Sir Paulius, Soaba, Prof Winduo,B Narokobi, D J Abaijah and so forth are rarely known in our education curriculum. To instill a sense of identity revolves around getting perspective from these people who viewed our way of life through their writings from a diff or earlier period of our history