Subject:  Re: Why so many school drop outs? - Root cause identified! |
Author:
Mangitbay
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Date Posted: 09:09:11 07/01/05 Fri
In reply to:
mazit
's message, "Re: Why so many school drop outs? - Root cause identified!" on 09:14:49 05/13/05 Fri
Merci Mazit. What you have mentioned above can not be argued at all. In fact, what you have mentioned illustrates the decline in terms of quality eduction in my own community. Here is a document that I put together to try and reflect on what I saw when I visited my village after I have been away all these years and just visited in August 2004. Being a sponsor for my kids and both my sisters children at home, how can I help make understand why children from this remote community struggle through the next phase of thier learning process?
Question: Why so many school drop outs, especially in high school?
As I am familiar with my own community, I will discuss Ponam islanders children as an example to illustrate my concern in relation to the above subject matter.
The school drop outs in this case can be further refined into 3 separated groups namely:- (1) Lack of school fees; (2) Disciplinary matters; and (3) Academic achievements
The points listed above are not arranged in any particular order of importance as they all play an important role in a student future aspiration.
I will use barriers raised by the contributors to this forum to outline how; whether or not the stated barriers had an impact either directly or indirectly on the kids of Ponam Islanders as an example of a remote tropical island community that is much depended on its children to bring in the much needed cash.
Here are the barriers raised by contributors to this forum. (Readers have to read contributors respective comments first before reading this article).
- Blade-runner - Too many entry levels (referring to examinations)
- Jaybee - Language barriers
- Muppie - School fees
- ***aCe*** - Disciplinary matters; Lack of focus on students part; Support from both parent and teachers
- Meripng - Children should humble and listen to parents.
- @Okapa - Example of parent and child responsibilities
Brief on Ponam Island
Location
Ponam is a small tropical coral island in the Admiralty Islands group, situated 1.4 degrees south of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, Manus Province Papua New Guinea (PNG).The island of Ponam is about 26 miles from Lorengau town, lying close off the northern coast of Manus Island, the largest of the Admiralty Islands. The climate is tropical, with a very high humidity and an annual rainfall of over 150 inches. Ponam Island is only one and a half miles long; 400 yards wide and had four miles of roads. It is surrounded by a coral reef, the longest in the Admiralty Islands. However, with the coral reef as the only natural barrier protecting the island, current global climatic changes, have resulted in much of the island being eroded into the sea. The population of the island of Ponam is about 500 people with approximately 200 are students and other islanders working in other parts of Papua New Guinea.
Significant Impacts
Between 1920 and 1945, two significant environmental impacts events occurred on the island were (i) establishment of a coconut plantation and (ii) building of an airstrip. About two thirds of the island’s native trees were cut down to pave way for coconut palms. The second phase of impact came during WWII, when the coconut plantation was bulldozed and converted into a compacted coral based airstrip. The other one third of the island was used for building support facilities for the navy personnel stationed on Ponam Island during the Battle of the Coral Sea.
These cumulative impacts meant islanders?agriculture dependency now has to be shifted to neighbouring mainland villages for most of their starch staple diet supplies. The islanders had access to the sea for protein and other forms of traditional wealth.
Economy
Ponam Islanders has traditional trade relations with Manus mainland villages based on fishing and shell money manufacture. This involved exchanging of fish and other aquatic resources for agricultural products. During colonial era and more so these days, when mainland villages moved from the mountains areas, settled along the coast and took to the sea, the islanders lost comparative advantages. The traditional trade relationship still exists today, but has changed from a barter exchange to a monetary exchange based system.
The islanders are very depended on the resources harvested from the ocean and traditional trade for their daily survival. Harvesting of sea resources such as seas cucumbers (bech-de-mer), reef fish, trochus, and corals is a way of life. However, if these resources are not harvested in a sustainable manner; the long term impact on the community livelihood and its future generations continued use of these resources will diminish forever; thus leading to social challenges both within the community and with neighbouring villagers over seabed and fishing rights.
Remittance from successful children of the islanders is by far the most dependent source of revenue entering the community. This provides for general family support to specifics like: - paying of school fees and other traditional obligations taking place at the community level.
Language
The number of languages listed for PNG is 832. Of these 823 are living languages and 9 are extinct, with a diversity index of 0.99. The national or official languages are Hiri Motu, Tok Pisin and English. Ponam is classified, as a language spoken in Papua New Guinea. Apart from these three official languages, inhabitants of PNG have their own native (mother tongue) language, so a person can really speak more than one language in the country.
Schools
After WWII, in order to survive, other means of investment has to be pursued. At that point in time, schools were already established and operated by Roman Catholic Church in the area. Most of the islanders children were encouraged to attend primary school away from home for the very first time. Most kids ran away from school, but a few that did stay wrote a new challenging chapter in the history of the islanders. They became the first human agent that would bring much needed cash flow into the community. Ponam islanders seized opportunities for formal education and took jobs away from home.
Some of these shining light for the islanders were Paul Songo, former PNG Ambassador to Australia, and former secretary for Education, Public Service Commission and Personnel Management; late Otto Kakaw, former National Library of PNG and late Francis Misso, former MSC priest and former principal of DCA College in Port Moresby. Few more of the early children of the islanders that did remain in school went on to become teachers, nurses and other professions that were popular in those days.
Therefore, what was the strategy as I review Ponam's success over the years?
Ponam Success Strategy: Formal Education.....Migration.....Employment........Remittance
This success strategy will continue to be successful only if the islanders yield good quality product (human agent). This will involve efforts from all parties: parents, the individual, and community.
What were seen to have materialised using the above strategy was material goods and money were coming into the community through remittance. Two things that was realised by the Ponams were: - (i) By investing to improve the productive capacity of the human agent,and (ii)Investment in education is the core of human capital.
Community survival depended very much on the success of its children. The success strategy will continue to work if there is a sustain supply of successful new products. Successful in this regard is securing a job that would benefit themselves, immediate family and whether or not they decide to support their extended family members back on the island.
This trend continued up to until the late of 1990s that fewer children of the islanders were able to make it pass year 10 in high school. Few made it up to University and succeeded to continue the circle of success. Others that would not get through to the second semester either returned home or started looking for jobs to help themselves pay for their tuition. Not all made it back to University.
Question: What has gone wrong?
Using Ponam islanders as an example, I will use the barriers raised by some of the readers of this forum to try and suggest what has gone wrong.
Too many entry levels - The barrier suggested by Blade_Runner (Too many entry levels) is a very important subject but it has to be parked for the time being, as I am not well verse to deal with the subject matter.
Language barrier - Language barrier by Jaybee is an interesting subject of discussion and his/her views are valid. In this example though, language is not barrier to the learning process of the Ponam islanders. Examples of the Ponam success strategy illustrate this fact.
School Fees - School fees barrier raised by Muppie is a subject that most parents would agree has a direct impact on a child's future. Even using Ponam success strategy, the process will only be sustained if sponsors are able to meet their own commitments.
As for Ponam kids, school fees are normally paid though instalments by the sponsors. Sponsors in some cases sponsor more than one child. However, not all kids on the island have a sponsor. I view this as a short term barrier but its impact is very drastic and long lasting.
Support Systems -***aCe*** listed a few barriers that contributes to as why so many drop-outs, especially in high school.One of the root causes of the issue has been identified. Support from parents and teachers are vital ingredients to a child success.
At various stages of a child up-bring, these 3 (parent, student & teacher) have different roles to play. One has to determine who needs to do what, when it needed to be done, and how its going to be done. Therefore the barrier raised by Meripng children should humble and listen to parents also falls into this category on the childs part. @Okapa's example best illustrates this fact of the various roles played by the parent and a child.
Other barriers also mentioned by ***aCe*** were disciplinary matters and lack of focus on students' part. The lack of focus on students part relates to proving a comfortable environment at home where effective open communication between the child and the parents takes place. Its easy to sit down and write all these, but in reality its something that is either one-way traffic or does not take place at all. In Ponam society, this somewhat has slacken off in recent years.
Continual support from home and effective open communication between the school and home has not to be maintained, in recent times. One could attribute this to two factors: (i) lack of quality time spent with the children and (ii) breakdown of effective communication between the school and parents. Most parents depend on provincial radio net work. Provincial radio station "Tok Save" program is the main source of information gathering, especially those on the outlaying islands. Ponam islanders are no exception.
Disciplinary matters are an interesting subject to deal with and can be of controversy depending on how one views it or lived with it. For Ponam islanders, the last time corporal punishment was enforced at community school was in 1976. Enforcement these days are the responsibilities of the parents and legal guardians of the children. When it comes to school disciplinary matters, the most likely action taken by a school board would be to send the child home or in a more extreme case close the school, rather than deal with the issue at hand.
School Infrastructure - There has not been an issue for such a facility on the island of Ponam over the years and the islanders take pride in having such a facility. Although some facilities require maintenance on annual bases, the current facilities can support grades 1 to year 6 students. Solar lights were installed recently as a pilot project for the education department. However, such facility is not being used to its full capacity.
Top-up School (Grade 7 & 8) - With the recent introduction of Top-ups, Ponam children were relocated to a neighbouring village to complete grades 7 & 8 before proceeding to do high school at one of the four high schools in the province. This went on for about 2 years or so before a land dispute occurred which prevented the kids from continuing their education in the neighbouring village. A Top-up?school was established at Ponam, which not only cater for the Ponam kids, but also the neighbouring villages. This was a positive move by the Manus Education Board. Having said that, what was not done by the Board was providing the essential support infrastructures: teachers, library, basic science equipment, and other necessary teaching materials needed for the Top-up school. The building foundation for successful high school aspirations is left shaking.
High School (Grade 9, 10, 11 & 12) - Two years in high school, grades 9 & 10 is actually one for the Ponam kids. With a shaky foundation (grades 7 & 8), grade 9 in high school will be disastrous for most kids. This fear has since been confirmed by a former principal of a high school in Manus Province.
Question: What is the root cause of all this?
The barriers pointed out by ***aCe*** in my views are more of a direct root causes to as why so many school drop-outs, especially in high schools as these are the building blocks for a successful life thereon. The school fees barrier raised by Muppie is a contributing factor that is more visible, felt and easily talked about. It can be classified as an immediate cause for not progressing any further. It is therefore not a root cause.
One of the root causes which I have not really touched on is a child's academic ability. The ability to learn comes in different forms. They come in the form of seeing (visual), hearing (audio), and feeling (physical). A child that picks ideas quickly by hearing will do well in school given a teacher that can communicate well with his/her class. A similar situation for a child that needed instructions to be written or a child that has be shown (hands on) say, this is how you cast a fishing line. Children that can master the three techniques always do well in school.
Question: What can we do about it?
This above example is related to Ponam Island and its quite different compared with a society close to a city, town, or a remote village in PNG. Even though some of the barriers raised by various readers in this forum apply to most villages in the country, each village setting is unique and the local economy that supports its survival is different.
For Ponam islanders, its time now for their elders and sponsors (sons and daughters) to get back to the drawing board and look for ways to sustain the life style on the island for the next generation. One thing for sure is that they will never leave the island of Ponam. Here are some options that might be useful for them to pursue:
- Continue with the current Ponam success strategy, by strengthening the areas identified as being weak;
- Educate islanders in the importance of using alternative sustainable methods of harvesting aquatic resources;
- Have a strong, visible & effective Local Level Government presence in the community; and
-Enter into negotiations for the possibility of buying or renting land on Manus mainland to help sustain life style on the island.
Question: Is there anything we successful PNGan's using both modern and cultural means in creating a culture where we don't fall into the gaps while moving from one cultural environment to another?
There are still a lot of questions yet to be answered, but looking into the future: a bleak future for the Islanders?
- Was Ponam losing its comparative advantage in human capital formation?
- Urban job markets increasingly competitive?
- Other villages catching up in terms of educational achievement?
- Increased school fees imposed on enrolments, seemed likely to prevent Ponam from redoubling investment in education?
- Some evidence of diminished enthusiasm for schooling?
- Lack of quality education at grass root level?
Note: These are my view points and do not necessarily reflect the views of other educated Ponam Islanders. As I am not an expert in Educational matters, nor Anthropology and Sociology but as a concern parent/sponsor trying to figure how I would contribute to minimize the social challenges in my community and is willing to listen and look for ways to sustain a prolong life style on such a tropical island.
later..mangitbay
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