Church education

Church seeks partnership in education

By Patrick Matbob
21 May 2011

 Churches in PNG continue to play a major role in educating PNG’s six million people. Yet churches are not conceded equal partners by the government when it comes to making decisions on the national education system.

Delegates to the Catholic Education conference

The concern was raised recently in a Catholic Education Convention held at Divine Word University early this year.

DWU Vice President Br Andrew Simpson who represents Catholic Education on the National Education board said the partnership between the church and government has been discussed over a number of years and he believed the Department of Education was well aware of the actual contribution made by churches in education.

However, despite this awareness, he said government officials have not fully grasped what partnership really meant and the way forward still left a lot to be desired.

He said for many education officials, the concept of partnership was very much about getting consultation and hopefully approval from the churches after decisions have been made.

He said partnership was also about participation, planning and involvement from the beginning and not simply about stamping an approval at the end of the decision-making process before implementation.

The Catholic Church which has been in PNG for more than 130 years has been involved in basic education ever since. Over the years the church has developed a partnership with the government to provide education services through its community and secondary schools, teachers colleges, nursing, vocational and technical schools, seminaries and a university. Similarly the Seventh Day Adventists, the Lutherans, United Church and Anglicans are also involved in education.

Archbishop of Alotau Francesco Panfilo said since 2004, the church has called for a review of the partnership between government and Catholic Church. After seven years there has been no formal document produce and the understanding of the government and the church on education is not the same.

“What we ask is to be treated like partners”. He said the church wants to be involved in areas such as selection of students, appointment of teachers, formulation of policies and designing of programs.

He cited as an example the designing of the Provincial Education Act where the churches were not given the opportunity to contribute constructively.

“Our review was not considered,” he said.  He said this was not the same with health services in which the church was also heavily involved. With health the church was allowed to choose health personals and decide salaries independent from the government.

However, he said education was different where appointments and pay were directly decided by the government. He said as a result absenteeism of teachers in schools was high and was hard to control.

Many teachers sent to remote rural schools often refuse to go or run away yet continue to draw their salary while absent from work. Archbishop Francisco asked the government to allow the church to control the salaries so they could prevent absenteeism in their schools.

One of the contentious issues affecting the partnership in recent times has been the government’s decision to introduce HIV & AIDS education in primary education. The decision was influenced by donor funding agencies.  The churches view on the matter was not duly considered, and the national government had gone ahead to train teachers and to implement the program in community schools. Church run schools have generally shunned the government HIV & AIDS program opting to teach their own program. A basic survey carried out by a DWU student recently has indicated cultural difficulties amongst teachers and students in the delivery and acceptance of the HIV & AIDS message especially among young school children.

Meanwhile, the government has recommended an independent review of the education partnership with the churches.

Acting Education Secretary Dr Joseph Pagelio who himself is a product of Catholic education also said that the government was aiming to have universal basic education by 2019. In order to achieve this, there needed to be more schools and teachers.

Dr Pagelio was concerned that the education system had to address the impact of social changes that were happening in the country today.

He said the country needed three things to make that happen; a good education policy framework, the need to map out programs using existing church and government resources, and ways to have closer dialogue with the churches with the involvement of independent reviewers of the partnership.

The call by the churches comes as the Lutheran Church is working towards establishing the third church run university after the Catholic and Adventist churches.

An attempt by factions of the Assemblies of God church to establish a university in Port Moresby recently was rejected by both the government and the elders of the church. While the government questioned the AOG church’s ability to set up and run the university, the elders were concerned about how the funding was sourced for the institution.

Ends.