Majuro Chamber of Commerce Holds Forum on Education in the RMI
Twenty questions, about the current state of education in the Republic of the Marshalls (RMI), were submitted in advance to Minister of Education Wilfred Kendall and Secretary of Education Biram Stege.
In his opening remarks at the June 14 Forum, Minister Kendall said that the Ministry of Education (MOE) is improved today with the advent of performance-based budgeting and a new management information system. All 5-year olds are enrolled in kindergarten. There is a revised curriculum for elementary school, standardized student testing for grades 3, 6, and 8, teacher testing, and movement toward teacher certification, according to the Minister.
Kendall noted there is still lack of English language proficiency and a large geographic area to serve.
In regard to the questions, the Minister said he would ask his staff here to answer them:
BUDGET/COMPACT FUNDING ISSUES
Q. What is the Ministry's budget, and where is the bulk of the money spent? What portion of the budget is Compact money?
A. Richard Bruce, Assistant Secretary of Education - Administration and Logistics. We have 27 million this year where 39% comes from the Amended Compact's base grant. This does not include the 12 million Amended Compact infrastructure funding. It does include 1 million in Ebeye “needs” funding and 5.9 million of the Supplemental Education Grant (SEG) that replaced Head Start, Workforce Improvement Act (WIA), etc.
Comment from the floor. US Ambassador Greta Morris supplied additional information regarding the Ebeye “needs” funding, Supplemental Education Grant, and infrastructure funding.
Q. CMI has been able to fast track funding for its facilities improvement projects because it has a comprehensive Facilities Master Plan. Does the Ministry of Education have a similar type of plan that charts the course for all the construction work that is needed to be done on its schools?
A. Tony Tomlinson, BECA, Project Unit Manager, RMI Public Works. Yes, there is a plan. The question implies an unfair comparison in that CMI funding actually preceded their plan. There are approximately 70 MOE sites. Approval is required from the Joint Economic Management and Financial Accountability Committee (JEMFAC). We've had a plan since 2003. Our priorities are: sufficient classrooms, maintenance issues, and a 50 million dollar outer islands maintenance backlog. Compact infrastructure funding comes in so-called trimesters (three-year periods). The first trimester is completed. The plan for the second trimester (2007-10) is completed, but the RMI government (not MOE) submits this plan to JEMFAC. The proposed plan includes Rairok Elementary School, Delap Elementary Schook, Ebeye Elementary School, and Laura High School. There are problems with leases and landowners.
Question from the floor. Neal Skinner, Owner, EZ-Price. How do we deal with lease and landowner problems?
A. Tony Tomlinson, BECA, Project Unit Manager, RMI Public Works. I refer these issues to MOE. MOE refers them to the RMI government.
Q. We notice that there is no provision for computer cabling in the new school buildings being built under the Compact funding. Is this an indication that computer literacy and proficiency is not a priority or plan of your administration?
A. Chris Person, Ministry of Education IT Director. No, it's a priority. There is no need now for wires. Wireless technology is the answer. And a wireless network is mobile. Electricity can be added later.
Q. How desirable is it for public education to have an underwater fiber optic cable connecting Majuro with the rest of the world? What are your plans to fully utilize this resource when it becomes available?
A. Chris Person, Ministry of Education IT Director. If this becomes available we will use it. But we are not sure if the Marshall Islands can afford their share given the existing NTA debt.
STUDENTS
Q. A high percentage of the students that graduate from the public high schools barely make it to credit level courses at CMI. Does the Ministry of Education have a comprehensive plan to address this problem? It obviously has enough resources. What is being done?
A. Allisan Nashian, Assistant Secretary of Education - Vocational Education. Yes, there is a plan. The primary school curriculum is done. We are working on the secondary school curriculum. We are developing standards and benchmarks. We're involving the private schools to obtain input. We are working with USP and CMI to make sure that our efforts are relevant. We're planning to do assessment testing of tenth and twelfth graders at the end of the year.
Question from the floor. Giff Johnson, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal. Can you give us some of the details? If the teachers are not qualified, can any curriculum do the job? Should the best teachers be in the primary grades?
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. A lot of these questions overlap. Our answer to question 14 will answer this. For example, there is a pilot project this year called pre-Nine [intervention] where we work with the eighth graders before they enter grade nine. The law says that all children should go to school, but we're not there yet. We plan to look at all of the important grade transitions - grade school, middle school, high school and college. We don't have exit tests yet for grade twelve. Without such tests our high school teachers cannot be effectively evaluated.
Comment from the floor: John Tuthill, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, CMI. 95% of the high school graduates here cannot be placed in CMI credit classes but must instead spend up to two years in remedial non-credit classes. There is no significant difference between the private and the public schools in this regard. This is not unique to the RMI. In the US as many as 70% of high school graduates are not passing junior college English and math entrance tests.
A. Allisan Nashian, Assistant Secretary of Education - Vocational Education. We have not had a curriculum for High School. We are now trying to develop a uniform curriculum.
Q. What is the Ministry doing about the truancy and drop out numbers?
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. MOE has a new management information system. This will help us track students and get data to deal with this issue. The forms that we currently use are being revised. There was a recent study done about this problem in Majuro and Ebeye. This is being analyzed now.
Question from the floor. Scott Stege, Lawyer. In reference to the US program “No child left behind”, if a child drops out of school and stays out of school how can this child not be left behind?
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. 90% of eighth graders are now going to either high school or vocational training.
A. Evelyn Konou, Principal Delap Elementary School. If a child doesn't come to school we try to call the parents if they have a telephone. When parents register children we ask for a telephone number or mailing address. If they don't have that we ask for the name of the weto where they live. Then we go to look for them. We have what we call a “special class.” We don't know what else to call it. When children in the age range of 9 - 13 years old come to us never having been in school, we place them in this class. I don't see a lunch program question from the Chamber. Some children don't come to school because they are hungry. The public schools don't have a lunch program.
Question from the floor. Liz Rodick, EZ-Price. Some of our employees, especially those with several children, tell us that they can't always afford the registration fee. Can this fee be waived?
A. Evelyn Konou, Principal Delap Elementary School. No. The schools use this for necessary expenditures such as small materials, other supplies, and gasoline.
Comment from the floor: Dr. Alex Pinano. There was a recent article in the Honolulu Advertiser about this problem. Hawaii has been able to solve part of this problem. Maybe this is something that we can do here. If we solve the problems in Kindergarten to grade 8, this will solve the high school dropout problem. [Chamber Secretary's note: The article that Dr. Pinano refers to is appended to these minutes]
Question from the floor. Karen Earnshaw, Cricket Correspondent, Marshall Islands Journal. We found 2 boys in Uliga who had never gone to school. Who is responsible to get these kids into school?
Answer from floor. Scott Stege, Lawyer. Anyone who comes in contact with a child out of school is responsible. S/he should identify the child to Ministry officials. All it takes to go to school is a pair of pants, two tee-shirts, and $15.
Comment from the floor. Marie Maddison, National Training Council Director. The RMI is a young nation. Parents here are similarly inexperienced. It is the law that children aged 4 to 18 should be in school. In our culture, the child is the center with the community encircling that child.
Question from the floor. Jerry Kramer, Owner, PII. It is very difficult to enforce the law. A food program is important to make school attractive. Are we eligible for USDA surplus food?
A. US Ambassador Greta Morris. USDA food is only available for the outer islands.
A. Tom Maus, US Embassy. In the late 1980's the school food program with USDA food was phased out.
Question from the floor. Jerry Kramer, Owner, PII. If the Chamber champions a public school lunch program will MOE object?
A. Wilfred Kendall, Minister of Education. No objection.
Comment from the floor. Dennis Alessio, Waan Aelon in Majel [Canoe project]. A recent study found that the most prevalent reason for school dropouts was nutrition. The second most prevalent reason was a requirement for babysitting.
Comment from the floor. Samuel Ngala, Teacher, Majuro SDA School. When I was teaching on the outer island of Ailinglaplap, I had to feed my students at my own expense so they would come to school. The Republic of China (Taiwan) then supplied free rice. That kept my expenses down.
Comment from the floor. ROC (Taiwan) Ambassador Lien-gene Chen. Taiwan donated surplus rice last year. The Marshall Islands Journal was critical. We are willing to do this again, but we don't want to offend either the private sector or the government.
Q. Given the alarming rate of teen pregnancies in the RMI, what is the Ministry's policy with regard to tuition for pregnant students, home study for new mothers, and what is the follow up to make sure that these students return to school to complete their educations? What is the Ministry's official position/policy as regards sex education in schools?
A. Juanita Rilometo, Science Curriculum Specialist. Sex education is a requirement for all schools in a manner consistent with Marshallese custom. Boys are separated from girls and taught by men while girls are taught by women. The MOE policy is that if a girl gets pregnant she can be excused for up to twenty days. MIHS has adopted a new policy. The girl is counseled and sent home to raise the baby for one year with an option to come back then. An outer island girl is sent to her home island for safety reasons. MOE doesn't have enough resources for home study, but we're looking into solutions such as working with WUTMI, PRELL, etc.
Question from the floor. Dr. Alex Pinano. Can MOE adopt a uniform policy for all schools?
Question from the floor. Nellie Yetton, teacher, National Vocational Training Institute. At what age do they start receiving sex education?
A. Juanita Rilometo, Science Curriculum Specialist. Grade 6 and up.
Question from the floor. Karen Earnshaw, Cricket Correspondent, Marshall Islands Journal. Please define twenty days.
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Q. What's the status of the National Vocational Training Institute? Does it have any students, and what types of partnerships/collaborations have been established to better understand what types of trades/skills are required by the private sector?
Q. One of the key development strategies proposed in the METO 2000 report was to "ensure coordinated use of all available training resources to raise vocational skills to externally competitive levels." (a) What is MOE role with the National Training Council and the National Vocational Training Institute? (b) How does the MOE or the training institutes evaluate the quality of training provided to individuals and on what basis do we evaluate the training capacity of individuals to ensure it has reached international competitive levels? (c) What are the types of training offered by these two training institutes and is there a way of channeling trained individuals to work for the private sector and other government agencies?
A. Clarence Saaud, National Vocational Training Institute Director. We've completed two full years. We have three tiers. Tier 1 is 9th and 10th grade academic remedial training and takes two years. Tier 2 is 11th and 12th grade academic remedial training and takes two years. Tier 3 is post secondary vocational training. This is for students that didn't make it to high school. We haven't started vocational training yet. Now it's English, math, and computers. We had 50 students to begin with. Then we had 90. Now we have 154. We expect to exceed 200 next year.
Question from the floor. Scott Stege, Lawyer. Who is eligible?
A. Clarence Saaud, National Vocational Training Institute Director. Students who took the eighth grade test.
Question from the floor. Samuel Ngala, Teacher, Majuro SDA School. How will these students transfer credits to other schools?
A. Nellie Yetton, teacher, National Vocational Training Institute. We are teaching very basic skills and do not expect any transfers to other schools. However, we are using a criterion reference system that clearly shows what each student has learned.
Question from the floor. Jack Niedenthal, Bikini Liaison. What are the CMI entrance requirements?
Answer from the floor. John Tuthill, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, CMI. We require a high school diploma or its equivalent.
Comments from the floor. Mark Canney, Strategic Plan Consultant, former ADB Project Manager, and Jaliut High School Principal. At the time that this program was started, CMI was going to offer certificate programs that these students could qualify for. The basic idea was to train these kids to be trainable.
Comments from the floor. Marie Maddison, National Training Council Director. We're trying to figure this out. Is the National Vocational Training Institute local or national? We are now studying all of this. We need a national human resource development plan. Now we have two sources of funding: non-resident workers' tax; and the Amended Compact Supplemental grant.
Q. Should CMI, USP or our high schools have a more or less vocational education emphasis?
Comments from the floor. John Tuthill, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, CMI. We think that there should be more vocational training, but accreditation issues prevented this. We can't make what WASC would consider to be a substantive change until the WASC sanctions end. But we could do more with office skills and nursing certification. However, we have limits with our facilities. At present we have 650 regular students and 150 GED students. Our new campus will handle at maximum 1000 students. That only allows us to increase by 200 more students.
Comments from the floor. Irene Taafaki, Director, Majuro Branch of the University of the South Pacific (USP). We have some vocational certificates. We're now talking with the Fiji Institute of Technology that is interested in offering its courses through us. This summer we have 30 students taking an agricultural vocational course.
WASC/PRIVATE SCHOOL ISSUES
Q. Why has the aid-to-private-schools been so late this year (the second half of which was only received after school ended)? Is there a way that this aid can be given to the private schools before Christmas? And why aren't the WASC accredited schools given more aid because of their accreditation status? Wouldn't this provide an incentive for other schools to try to become accredited and thereby raise education standards in the RMI?
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. Ask the Ministry of Finance. It is their responsibility to manage any disbursements that come out of the General Fund. Based on quarterly tax receipts, it is not possible for private schools to receive everything before Christmas. We increased the accreditation portion of a private school grant entitlement ranking from 2 to 8%.
Question from the floor. Samuel Ngala, Teacher, Majuro SDA School. How about other forms of accreditation?
ADB REPORTS/PSC ISSUES
Q. One of the key findings of the recent Jumemej Report mentioned that, "education outcomes remain poor despite increasing inputs. Recent analyses have illustrated serious deficiencies within the public education system that contribute to continued underperformance and poor educational attainment among Marshallese students. School enrollment, completion, and testing trends have not improved despite large amounts of resources invested in education". What are the measures taken by the MOE, if any, to alleviate or correct the deficiencies mentioned in the report?
Q. By any criterion, the educational system has failed the students of the RMI for many years (and thus created major problems for employers and the economy), across all three governments' administrations. Recent statistics, previously unavailable, have quantified the degree of the problem, although it has been known empirically for years, and analysis by outside experts state that the problem has been primarily administration, not funding. Students in the RMI are amongst the poorest-educated in the world, requiring employers to import qualified employees from elsewhere, depriving Marshallese of this employment. It seems the government is in denial of the extent of the problem, and even stated that the conclusions are wrong (although largely derived from the government's own records). Is there are plan, with dates ascribed, for the necessary steps to be taken to reform curricula, teacher competence and performance, attendance (both teacher and student), and resources (such as books)? If so, what is this timetable? if not, why not?
[Chamber Secretary's note: the above two questions were considered to be already answered]
Q. The ADB study showed wages paid above and below the Public Service Commission established rates. Many of those above were not only receiving higher pay than what is authorized, but they were not qualified for their positions. Many of those paid below the PSC established rates were qualified. Since the investigation has brought these discrepancies to your attention, what is being done to correct the situation?
A. Wilfred Kendall, Minister of Education. This happened before our time, and is not an issue now.
Information from the floor. Mark Canney, Strategic Plan Consultant, former ADB Project Manager, and Jaliut High School Principal. Years ago Ministry people were hired under the EPMS system. The Ministry then assigned all people to the Public Service (PSC) salary levels. Those whose salaries were too high did not have their salaries reduced. However, there would be no salary increases for them. Those whose salaries were too low were eligible for salary increases.
Information from the floor. Raynard Gideon, Commissioner, Public Service Commission. That is correct.
Q. Should the PSC control teachers and employees of the Ministry? Or should your Ministry have the power to hire, fire and recruit the best teachers for the money? Have the salary disparities brought out in a recent report by the ADB been corrected?
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. The Ministry of Education should have the authority. Based on my past experience where this was true, it was easier to manage. Now there are a lot of steps to go through to manage people. But constitutionally what we want is not possible now.
Comment from the floor. Dennis Alessio, Waan Aelon in Majel [Canoe project]. Something has to change. MOE has to have control.
Question from the floor. Jack Niedenthal, Bikini Liaison. [asked of PSC Commissioner Gideon] Can PSC be more cooperative?
A. Raynard Gideon, Commissioner, Public Service Commission. PSC has MOE and MOH. We don't hear this about MOH. I don't know. PSC supports the status quo.
A. Wilfred Kendall, Minister of Education. No objection. A few months ago there was a Cabinet paper to exempt MOE from PSC, but that didn't work. MOE is working with PSC to achieve more cooperation. We're looking at putting teachers on contract.
Comment from the floor. Marie Maddison, National Training Council Director. We need to flatten MOE management even down to the principal level.
18. The testing of teachers was done once (2004), and it sure looked useful for MOE and the public. But there's been nothing since then. When could we expect the next round of teacher testing?
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. Yes, this will happen this summer. We are also testing all new hires.
Question from the floor. Kerry Earnshaw, Boat Person. If all children were put in school, would there be room.
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. Probably not now.
Question from the floor. Bill Weza, General Manager, Marshall Islands Resort. With such a large MOE budget, why is the $15 student registration fee going for supplies?
A. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education. This money stays in each school, and its use is reported to MOE.
A. Wilfred Kendall, Minister of Education. Past abuses have been punished.
Comment from the floor. Ben Graham, ADB Consultant. Forecasts for the future are now available. It looks like the future student population is shrinking.
Question from the floor. David Kupferman, CMI. Education has always occurred in the Marshall Islands. What we are talking about today is the schools. What do you want from the schools?
A. Wilfred Kendall, Minister of Education, read the MOE Mission Statement in answer to this question.
Question from the floor. Scott Stege, Lawyer. Where are the other aspects of public education such as music?
-----
President of the Chamber, Jack Niedenthal, who welcomed guests to the meeting said that the Chamber want a "higher profile in our community."
"We believe that in order to solve many of the complex situations that face our community today, it will take dialogue with our community to solve those problems, and the dialogue cannot be only those discussions we hear from the Nitijela floor for a couple of months out of the year. This is the Chamber's second forum. We next hope to have a forum on health, and then later on a forum on solid waste."
Ministry of Education Guests in Attendance:
Guests
1. Wilfred Kendall, Minister of Education
2. Biram Stege, Secretary of Education
3. Raynard Gideon, Commissioner, Public Service Commission
4. Marie Maddison, National Training Council Director
5. Brenda Maddison, Assistant Secretary of Education - Policy and Planning
6. Richard Bruce, Assistant Secretary of Education - Administration and Logistics
7. Allisan Nashian, Assistant Secretary of Education - Vocational Education
8. Kanchi Hosia, Assistant Secretary of Education - Elementary Education
9. Catalino Kitchener, Ministry of Education Budget Officer
10. Chris Person, Ministry of Education IT Director
11. Molly Kukera, Director, Teacher - Quality Enhancement and Professional Development
12. Evelyn Konou, Delap Elementary School Principal
13. Juanita Rilometo, Science Curriculum Specialist
14. Clarence Saaud, National Vocational Training Institute Director
15. Mark Canney, Strategic Plan Consultant, former ADB Project Manager, and Jaliut High School Principal
16. Dennis McFarlan, veteran Jaliut High School teacher, and former Peace Corps
-----
DOWNLOAD: June Chamber Minutes for Education Forum
