Education standards are reformulated into learning objectives from the broad goals or visions. Countries determine education standards based on their promotion of culture, economic development, science and technology, and political interests that are perceived by them as paramount to fulfil their visions (Schmoker, 2000). These educational visions are translated into more tangible objectives, such as those contained within curricula for schools. Education standards are formulated in each discipline area, for example, science for primary school. Education standards must take into account the concerns of context and culture, time and place (Thomas, 1994).
These concerns and issues associated with context include culture and cultural practices, historical backgrounds, language, diversity of societies and political interests. These were discussed as elements which influence how educational goals and standards are defined (see section 2.6). Cultural factors support the physical, cognitive and social psychological elements of pupils’ human development (Ceci, 1996; Cole, 1996). For instance, one’s cultural context is an integral part of cognition because the culture arranges the occurrences or non-occurrences of events that are known to affect cognitive development, such as when literacy is taught in the school curriculum (Avery, 1992; Ceci, 1996).
In a centralised curriculum, central authorities normally make decisions, and there is little public debate about the body of knowledge that informs curriculum content. The expectations of performance are varied, depending on students’ learning abilities, teaching styles, teachers’ competencies and social demands (Gardner, 1999). Therefore, an education system can represent its national standards with multiple pathways. Whatever these may be, there must be a “manageable number of distinct pathways” (p. 227). The premise of making distinct choices is that education systems can address fundamental concerns and issues through appropriate policy and direction. The chosen national standards and curriculum must involve those who are responsible in the implementation (Gardner, 1999).
Teachers have to be involved in the development of national educational benchmarks, or standards from the national goals so that they will be in a better position to refine and implement improvement in their schools. Research shows that there are signs of hope when teachers are trusted and converse with their colleagues at much higher levels; when they feel they are participating in decision making and are working with an authentic, or non-manipulative, principals or policy makers (Marsh, 1999). Tucker & Codding (1998) emphasise the importance of this approach to school improvement as an important component of implementing a standards-based approach to education.
For the purpose of comprehensive standards-based education development, principals have to engage teachers to take leadership roles to feel the ownership of professionally providing levels of input in curriculum development and renewal processes for a well-defined sense of mission in schools. Any curriculum review in schools has to draw from the best available knowledge from research and current trends in order to identify what will be expected of students in specific content areas. Furthermore, those developing content standards need to ensure that the standards specify clearly both what students need to know and what they should be able to do. Content standards have to be clear and measurable, focus on cognitive learning and be based on traditional academic subjects (Foriska, 1998).
Content standards define the content and are reflected in the scheduling of teaching (Hill & Crevola, 1999, pp. 125-127). Content standards provide a map of learning areas to ensure that important content is covered as well as its level or depth of coverage. Performance standards define the level of students’ progress specified for each grade level. The above must be driven by teachers’ understandings to ensure that teaching effectiveness relies on 1) time on task, 2) closeness of content covered to assessment instruments, 3) a structured approach with specific objectives, frequent assessment, and corrective feedback, 4) types of adaptive instruction that can be managed by teachers.
complex reasons inherent in the national development phase as a new nation. Beeby (1966) stated that “the idea of excellence in any school depends on the goals it sets itself and are dependent on what teachers are capable of accomplishing” (p. 14). Therefore, improving learning involves focusing on teachers’ understandings about teaching and learning, specifically elements such as leadership and coordination, standards, monitoring and assessments and other associated factors (see 2.6 and 3.3) that can influence students’ achievements.
Research on Papua New Guinea education has publicly ridiculed specified standards in the national curriculum as lacking relevance. This research asserts that the national policy on education standards also contribute to students’ weaknesses in the achievement levels and basic skills after completing primary and secondary schooling. This study complements reports by Kenehe, (1981), Matane, (1986) and NDOE, (2002c).
For example, during the 1980s and 1990s, a plethora of government reports and research on education expressed concerns and issues related to quality and standards of education. An official report captures this when it states that the:
[e]ducation sector has been well researched both before and after independence, and the country is awash with research papers, scholarly monographs and reports of national committees, commissions, external consultants, missions, workshops and seminars. There is no dearth of suggestions – good, bad or indifferent – and there is a high degree of awareness of the problems and constraints, but these suggestions do not appear to get translated into meaningful action. There is a wide gap between pronouncements and their implementation (UNDP/ILO, 1993, p. 132).
This study, however, explores teachers’ and other stakeholders’ perceptions and understanding of standards in elementary and primary in Papua New Guinea in order to identify key recommendations that can be implemented and bring about change.
The contextual issues discussed in this chapter depict issues inherent in policy guidelines and curriculum implementation of the national education system. The following sections illustrate the complexities embedded in the achievement of education standards. Much of this discussion is consistent with factors that influence standards as discussed in section 2.6.
Papua New Guinea School system
The following illustrates the structure of Papua New Guinea education under the current reforms from the 1990s.
Figure 3.1: New Education Structure
Basic Education Secondary Education Elementary lower primary and upper primary lower/upper secondary
Key: PETT represents pre-employment technical training courses. College includes teacher training
and other tertiary status institutions. Flexible Open Learning represents college of distance education and distance and continuing education. Students from open learning, colleges and grade 12 have access to the five universities.
The Papua New Guinea education system is “pyramidal”, in that while many students begin at the elementary/primary schooling stage, the number of students declines in later years. The pyramid narrows as only academically capable students get selected through national examinations to continue (Thomas, 1976, p. 204). Papua New Guinea is still currently operating two three-tier systems. The first to be introduced, with a 6-4-2 structure and still operating in some parts of the country (mostly in the rural areas), involves six years of primary, four years of secondary and two years upper secondary (grades 11- 12). National exams occur at the end of grades 6, 10 and 12 in this system. More recently, a 3-6-4 structure has been introduced with exams at grade 8 and 12. This new policy introduces three years elementary, six years of primary, and four years of secondary education. Children enter elementary education at 6 years of age, and move to primary education from 9-14 years. The new structure, illustrated in Figure 3.1, provides access to education to more pupils from different exit points.
E P E1 E2 G3 G4 G5 Vocational Other Grade 11 &12 PETT College Adult literacy and
learning
Flexible Open Learning
Universities G9 &10 G 6 G 7 G 8
that children receive four hours of school instruction each day. Elementary education was introduced in 1995 as an initial part of primary education. Elementary education is regarded as a key mechanism in the reform process, providing more opportunities for pupils to learn in their own vernacular language using a curriculum developed to suit their cultural context. Primary level starts with grade three and continues to grade eight. These years focus on the strengthening of the child’s social, cultural, spiritual, ethical, moral and vocational education, but tend to not focus on core academic skill development.
Secondary level is composed of grades 9 to 12. For these years, some students attend the College of Distance Education or Vocational Secondary Schools to complete Grades 9 and 10. Grades 11 and 12 prepare the students for employment and various opportunities in higher education. Higher education is composed of university education, and tertiary training institutions, which offer programs such as teacher training programs, offered through primary teachers colleges and others such as the apprenticeship extension courses to prepare students for employment and future studies.
The school system is confronted with two immediate issues. The first is that many rural communities continue to organise their school education using the previous 6-4-2-tier system. Second, while the recent education reform introduced the 3-6-4-tier system, and this new system (3-6-4) has given more access for many children through building new schools, unfortunately it has overlooked prolonged problems such as high teacher/pupil ratios, retention and progression rates, quality of education, teacher education and resource allocation.
Retention and Participation
The intention of the education access policy in the reform process was to increase retention and participation rates amongst school age children at the elementary and primary schools, in a long term endeavour to achieve universal primary education (UPE). Implicit in this endeavour is that children completing basic education would meet the standards of being literate and numerate. However, Avalos (1992) noted that the goal to achieve UPE has been set a number of times since 1955 and has never been reached. The failure for this was the lack of effective decisions to mobilise the country’s resources. This makes UPE unachievable within the 21st century. The education system has to broaden access to ensure
retention and participation (p. 8). There appears to be no comprehensive education statistics essential for analysis of participation and retention rates. However, reports reveal that the percentages vary markedly from province to province (Yeoman, 1985, Seta & Sail, 1988). Gibson & Weeks (1990) stated that the obvious factors were lack of central control of student-teacher ratios, appointment of teachers and distribution of resources. Other factors inhibiting UPE were connected with aspects such as gender, parental support, finance, lack of teachers, community support, and geographical locations. Significant
too were factors associated with teacher preparation and teacher knowledge and skills, prerequisites for attainment of education standards (Gibson & Weeks, 1990).
The government's education reform process is a key component of the Papua New Guinea development strategy. Increasing access to education for girls and children in remote areas is the first objective. The second objective is to increase the educational standards of the population. However, the prerequisite for achieving the above intentions is connected to teachers’ understandings and the factors that influence their performance of content and curriculum standards. These are considered in the following discussion.