UBE 2015 target still distant

Caption: (L) Dr Tapo, Dr Kukari and Dr Webster, all holding onto the report

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, October 6, 2013 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

THE United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) goal of 100 per cent Universal Basic Education (UBE) for all children in the country to attain basic education till grade eight, is far from being achieved despite progress made in enrolment numbers- with researchers calling for more effort from the state.

That was the conclusion made in the National Research Institute’s (NRI) latest report launched at the institute by the Acting Minister for Education James Marape, and witnessed by Acting Education Secretary Dr Michael Tapo, last week in Port Moresby.

Universal Basic Education in Papua New Guinea: Experiences, Lessons learnt, and Interventions, is the title of the report, which consists a collection of papers compiled and presented at the National UBE conference held in 2011.

According to the report over half a million children in the country still have no access to basic primary education, with the quality of education dropping due to the increased teacher to student ratio, lack of continues professional development of teachers, leading to increased cheating that occurs by students.

The report was compiled by Dr Arnold Kukari, who said that the report was a tool the government could use to address issues highlighted in the report to ensure 100 per cent UBE is achieved.

“We want the government through the department to take on the recommendations, and implement them.”

“Some of them are radical in nature, because they will deliver the types of outcomes we are looking for.”

“We are very happy because the government has already taken on board some of the recommendations, and the department is now to facilitate the implementation of the others; including early childhood education,” he said.

NRI director Dr Thomas Webster made mention of the country’s report to the UN where the Deputy Prime Minister Leo Dion said the MDG goals for PNG were far from being on target- referring to the country’s tendency to plan without achieving the intended outcomes.

“I think we focus on too many plans- we are very good at producing plans- national plans, provincial plans, sectoral plans, and departmental plans.”

“We think that the plans will achieve the end objectives themselves, we just let things roll- we have to intervene and make sure that the plans are implemented.”

If we don’t achieve UBE, PNG will still struggle with the development problems we have today,” Webster said.

Minister Marape said that the government was on track to achieve in line with the government’s Universal Basic Education plan 2010 to 2019 with current UBE rate at above 70 per cent.

“Our statistics was 53 per cent net enrolment in the basic education sector- today midway through the life of our UBE plan statistics reveal that we have gone past 70 per cent, and I would agree that not all is gloomy and bad as some would perceive to think, but we’ve made some progress.”

“Whilst we may have dreams of a big step, Rome was never built in one day, but it was built in a thousand years.”

Marape acknowledged the 2015 United Nations scorecard report time deadline for UBE, however, pointed out that the government was not bounded or pressured by any timescale that was attached to PNG.

“This is morally a right on the government to pursuer the path of UBE, simply because therein lies the fundamental anchor essential to the education sector plan in the country.” he said.