Comments

Hello Helen, Thank you for the update. Kiribati has certainly come a long way since 2013 in terms of inclusive education. I am pleased that the small part I played in the seeding of inclusive education initiatives has taken fruit.

Rodney, you will be pleased to know that since your last visit in 2016, Australia's long term and consistent investments in inclusive education have paid off. This year, 55 students with a disability are studying in Ministry of Education's (MoE) mainstream schools. They have successfully transitioned from the Special School into regular classrooms. All primary schools in South Tarawa have disability access, complete with covered walkways and accessible toilets and teachers have been trained in inclusive strategies. In the beginning of 2020, the MoE designated Bikenibeu West to be the seventh model inclusion school in Tarawa. The Ministry of Education, through the Teacher Training College, has delivered two one-year, full-time Certificate III courses for Teacher Assistants. The 36 graduates have been deployed to the seven model inclusion schools as permanent teaching staff of the Ministry. They are bona fide public servants of the government to support inclusive education. 'Domestic ownership' is also evidenced by the MoE's current focus on 'mainstreaming procedures' to sustainably and sensibly continue to implement its inclusive education policy. Individual Education Plans (IEPs) are developed for students with a disability to study in regular classrooms and the IEPs inform the adjustments required for students to sit the national exams. The Government's annual census includes data on students with a disability and the MoE's Teacher Service Standards explicitly recognises the importance of inclusive classrooms. In fact, school leader's and teacher's annual performance criteria specifically identifies their use of inclusive measures. The MoE's permanent Inclusive Education Officer has assisted the Government to lead on these initiatives. You can feel confident that the inclusive education initiatives have 'taken root' with tacit and real examples of Kiribati Government prioritising their budget and efforts into sustaining and growing what has shown to be working. Here is a short video of one student's story - in fact, this year, two of the students in this video received a Government of Kiribati scholarship to further their studies in Fiji - the first time any Kiribati student with a disability has received such an opportunity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJ8iI8UyVc (copy and paste the link)

Good points Angela - thanks! On difficulty in picking good teachers from some countries, an option is to pick fresh graduates with teacher training (from USP or Australia) for work experience & mentoring in Australia before being posted to schools at home (i.e. in the islands). And, similarly partnering an Australian teacher with a local counterpart in-situ has merit as both will learn from each other - we do canvass this option in the blog. Finally, let us put our prejudices aside and assess objectively what works, the concluding point of the blog. Ryan and I are proposing a race between PSSSP and 'Teach for the Pacific' for the aid dollar: the winner will be the children of the islands and the Australian taxpayer!

The PSSSP may have some negative impacts in terms of removing high-performing students from local schools and from their families, and it may be difficult to ensure that scholarships are indeed awarded on merit. However, the suggestion to replace this with a 'Teach for the Pacific' program is highly problematic. Firstly, it would be enormously difficult to identify Pacific teachers with the relevant qualifications and experience to teach in Australian schools, particularly from Pacific countries with 'least developed' status. Secondly, if those teachers could be identified, removing them from their home positions means removing the people who are best placed not only to teach students effectively, but to cooperate with and mentor other local teachers. Putting an Australian teacher in their place means inserting someone with no familiarity with the local curriculum, school culture, community language (and usually second language of the school), or students into a school and expecting them to work miracles. Meanwhile, Pacific teachers would be expected to return home and apply everything they've been doing in a completely different teaching context to their home context, with all its specific challenges and constraints. It's well-documented in the literature that in-service teacher education works best in-situ. Better solutions would be 1. to place Australian teachers alongside local Pacific teachers to co-teach and mentor them within their own contexts and 2. to provide scholarships for pre-service teachers to study Education in Australia before returning home to begin their service, most likely with a supplementary teacher-education program at home to familiarise them with local policies, curricula and approaches.

I like it, it's good to educate there and come and teach.

Thank you for your incredibly helpful comment, Michael. A lot to think about indeed.

Much food for thought Michael. Thanks for these comments.

This seems a very worthwhile suggestion. For so long as there is no more money in the aid program we need to concentrate on maximising the benefit of what we spend.

Hi Statish & Ryan, the idea you propose may be the better alternative. Exchanging teachers, and training teachers in Australia. At present, PNG’s National High Schools (Four schools) takes the cream of PNG’s Grade 10 students after exams to continue to grades 11-12. Many of these students come from rural areas. This leaves the second best to continue studying at their respective high schools/secondary schools. PSSSP will most likely take students who would have come to these National High Schools, which means second best will continue at National High schools, leaving the third best for the schools providing students for PSSSP and National High Schools of PNG. Martyrs Secondary School in Oro Province has similar arrangements with sister school in Melbourne, Melbourne Grammar, where two of the best Grade 10 students from Martyrs are sent to Melbourne. They repeat year 10, and proceed to year 11 and 12. However they are required to return to PNG as the scholarship only covers secondary schooling years. Most of these students had problems getting into PNG universities because selections for tertiary institutions in PNG are concluded before results of these students studying in Australia are ready. Unless students studying under PSSSP all continue on to Australian universities, they will face the same problems as those experienced by Martyrs Secondary students. Taking away the best students from rural areas is clearly not in PNG’s best interest. Training PNG (and the Pacific) teachers, and exchanging high school teachers benefits many students. PSSP only benefits a select few. But you have to look at the goal of Australian government. PSSSP is not necessarily aimed at improving the Pacific’s high schools, its aimed at maintaining a positive outlook towards Australia (possibly part of countering Chinese).

I can see the point and the need to present more value proposition of development for governments and donors but talking diplomats on development by illustrating the benefits for their security agenda will end up allocating budgets for development interventions that serve the donor's country but not necessarily produce interventions that address the local communities need. What is presented above undermine the participatory approach therefore it isn't sufficient and requires the employment of ethical criteria to ensure prioritisation of local needs whilst motivating diplomats to commit to development.

Children should fear punishment in school. A good paddle on the behind has not hurt anyone. If children were disciplined well in grade school we would not see these older kids so disrespectful. So spank them and spank them soundly.

Am with you on this particular point. PMJM only needs smart thinkers to deliver for him. We are done with laissez-faire & liberalism, it's time to face challenges of digitisation.