Page 20 - IB January 2022

Education Education

CLASS DISMISSED?

KEEPING PACIFIC CLASSROOMS OPEN IN 2022

By Samantha Magick children are completing primary education, and the number
of Pacific children who attend early childhood education is
Will Pacific Island school children get an uninterrupted increasing every year.”
year of face-to-face learning in 2022? Governments and their It also found an upward trend in government budget al-
partners are working hard to open classrooms, and keep them locations towards education. In 2019, education recurrent
open, but the spread of the Omicron variant, and concern expenditure as a percentage of total government expenditure
amongst parents about the safety of their still-unvaccinated was between 11-18% for most Pacific countries, apart from
children, is slowing this effort. Solomon Islands (38%). The report projects that government
UNICEF has been a strong advocate for getting Pacific allocations to education as a percentage of total expenditure
children back into classrooms as soon as possible. It calls CO- will increase over the next five years, despite other pressures
VID-19 the “worst crisis for children [it] has seen in its 75-year on national budgets.
history.” A growing number of nations are also offering ‘free’ educa-
UNICEF says that at the peak of the pandemic, more than tion, often supported by donors and promised/promoted at
1.6 billion students were out of school due to nationwide certain times in the election cycle. For example, last month,
shutdowns. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government
Fiji schools closed for three months in 2020, almost all of would provide AUD$35 million (US$24 million) to support the
last year, and have had their opening delayed by bad weather PNG government’s tuition fee-free education subsidy for all
this year (see two students’ views on school closures on page primary school students. Some 1.1 million children are en-
26).UNICEF estimates that “more than 200,000 [Fijian] school rolled in primary school in PNG and questions remain around
children who have lost an estimated 1,050 hours each – and the long-term sustainability of this policy.
counting – of in-person learning since April [2020].” While the SPC report noted these improvements, it also
In Guam, schools closed in March 2020 and have not fully identified a number of on-going challenges:
regained momentum since. Last year, students studied largely • too many children are still out of school and too few
online, with full face-to-face classes resuming in November. finish secondary education;
Department of Education Deputy Superintendent Joe Sanchez • a lack of equity in accessing education for children in
said the number of students failing had doubled in the course remote areas, in families with low incomes and for
of the pandemic. While Superintendent Jon Fernandez says children with disability;
the current number of COVID-19 cases amongst students and • system inefficiencies: children start school too late,
teachers is “quite alarming”, there are no plans right now to and grade repetition and drop out rates are too high.
close schools again, although Catholic schools have already In Tonga, new Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni has iden-
returned to distance learning. tified this as one of his top-three priorities. “We need
It’s a story repeated across the region. to reduce school dropouts,” he told local media in his
In a recent briefing note, UNICEF refuted concerns that first days in office.
schools could be super-spreader venues for COVID-19. “A • low quality education: literacy and numeracy achieve-
review of the current evidence shows that in-person school- ment is low, many teachers are undertrained, the
ing does not appear to be the main driver of infection spikes, curricula lacks relevance, links between education and
children in school do not appear to be exposed to higher risks the labour market are absent;
of infection compared to when not in school when mitigation • system and school management are not effective
measures are in place, and school staff also do not appear to enough due to a lack of data, low quality data, short-
be at a higher relative risk compared to the general popula- age of staff skilled in planning and program oversight;
tion,” it stated in a briefing note. • funding is inadequate and is highly reliant on external
UNICEF Pacific Representative Jonathan Veitch has wel- funding, resources are used inefficiently; and
comed the planned reopening of schools, saying the “impor- • a lack of coordination among education providers in
tance of the teacher has never been so clear.” subsectors of pre-primary education, TVET and non-
formal education.
Other education challenges
Pandemic-induced disruptions to schooling have exacerbat- The underqualification of teachers is a particular problem
ed some of the long-standing problems within Pacific educa- in secondary schools, where a significant number have yet to
tion systems. complete the minimum formal teacher training. The report
The Status of Pacific Education 2020 released by the Pacific says this problem is compounded by overcrowding of class-
Community (SPC) last year found that of the six nations rooms in many urban schools (also a factor worrying parents
examined (Republic of the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Samoa,
Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu), “more primary school-age Continued on page 24

20 Islands Business, January 2022