West Papua Information Kit

Education

• Australian Government AusAID 2005
  3.6 EDUCATION
    The vast majority of indigenous Papuans remain at the margins of the modern economy. The participation rate of the Papuans in education is generally poor, and the annual increase of participation is very small. Only fifty per cent of Papuans have received any formal education or have graduated from primary school and only 10 per cent are high school educate. Papua has the lowest ranking by over 10 percentage points on a number of different educational indexes. Various barriers remain to increasing participation in education, including infrastructure, recruiting high quality teachers and providing better welfare for them. A major impediment that accounts for low indigenous Papuan participation in modern economic activities is their lack of education and vocational skills. Indigenous Papuans are simply unable to compete with settlers in the rapid-growth sectors of the economy owing to an enormous gap in education and skill levels. .. .. ..
   
• Feb 2003
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  Quite some villages nowadays depend on these teachers or on a poor combination of one or two qualified teachers with assistance from the guru-pamong for the education of their children. The situation is still made worse by qualified teachers, those with an appropriate training, not being in their allocated villages. They often leave their posts for weeks on end travelling to Mindiptana and even Merauke with little concern for the children they are supposed to be teaching. This situation is not limited to the Waropko-Mindiptana area as it is found in many areas of the district of Merauke (and other districts in the province).
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  1. In general children in and around the sub district centre of Mindiptana have a reasonable chance to get the education they need; there is no sign of any discrimination against the children who have come back from PNG. Education facilities in Mindiptana include elementary schools as well as lower and higher secondary school (SMP, SMU). In the villages the situation is very different, most have primary school buildings but the school is not really taken care of, a result of the fact that the number of children is very limited, but more often because there are no teachers.
  2. It must be made clear that this situation is found not only in the Muyu area but also in other nearby sub districts. Tinggam the village visited in the Mandobo area had an active school. The school only has three classrooms so this year class 2, 4 and 6; a total of 71 pupils were being taught. The teaching staff consisted of one qualified teacher living in the village and one 'emergency teacher' (guru pamong) who just had two years of SMP education (lower secondary school). Officially there should be seven teachers: 5 fully qualified and 2 'guru pamong'. Although officially assigned to the school the four absent teachers stay in Mindiptana (across the river) and hardly ever show up to teach. This picture is repeated in the Muyu area outside of the main centre of Mindiptana. The village of Umap has an old school building, hardly in a condition to be used and has only 6 pupils who are given some schooling by two local 'guru pamong'. Officially the elementary school in Waropko (91 pupils and six classes) should have 3 qualified teachers and 3 ?guru pamong?. Only one qualified teacher is active, while the three ?guru pamong? were on strike at the time of the survey as they are not satisfied with the very low wage of Rp. 20.000 a month. In Waropko therefore one qualified teacher runs 6 classes. At the village of Imko there is a simple school building for three classes. The 2 qualified teachers allocated to the school are not in the village and the school is taken care of by several army ?guru pamong?. Ninati has recently started its education programme (three classes) using one qualified teacher, one army ?guru pamong? and one ?guru pamong? who didn?t finish lower secondary school (SMP). It is not surprising that parents are complaining that their children although theoretically having passed through six classes and passed the exams can in fact not decently read and write or do simple maths.
  3. One of the main reasons people moved back to their area was to get their kids educated however the education services do not fulfil this aspiration. The parents were motivated to support their children to go to school, but seeing the level of education available results in a fair number of them becoming indifferent. The highly motivated people try to get their children into school in Mindiptana, paying substantial amounts of money to have them boarded and taken care of, often by relatives. This is quite a burden on both families involved and many would prefer to be able to board their children in supervised boarding houses. A number of people who stayed behind in PNG try to get their children educated there, but it seems that this has been limited by the local community, and the cost is high especially for secondary school education; there has been no real alternative but to return.
  4. One of the disturbing things is that there are qualified teachers available and willing to teach but will not do so unless their status as teacher (which they had before leaving) is officially restored. It is difficult for them, the community and anyone else to understand why the government is so reluctant to use them again (even after they have successfully passed a political screening). Besides the direct benefit they would bring to the educational situation there would also be an improvement in the social climate with these people getting the appreciation they deserve.
  5. Teaching material is very poor if available at all; and the same can be said about the housing facilities for teachers. This lack of or poor quality housing is often a reason for teachers to stay in the main centre of Mindiptana and not in their assigned village.
  6. It is not surprising that the number of elementary school-leavers that makes it to secondary education is very limited. In Tinggam (Mandobo-area) we were even informed that for the last two years there was no child that attended upper secondary school (SMU). Some other stories are more encouraging as there are still people ?making it?. The head of the Andokpit village is proud to tell that his oldest son has become a nurse in Merauke; another used his training in PNG to become a good construction worker, while two of his younger children are studying in Yogyakarta (Java). From the Umap village 6 pupils are at lower secondary school (SMP) in Mindiptana, 4 are at the SMU level, and two are supported for advanced training in Merauke and Ende (Flores). Children who once attended the elementary school in PNG seem to have no problems to succeed at the secondary level in Mindiptana.
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