Exciting moment for education, says minister

Minister of Education and Human Resources Development, Hon. Lanelle Tanangada is confident the Education Bill 2023 once passed by Parliament will provide fresh and clear approach to our education system.

She highlighted this when addressing the teachers during the World Teachers Day celebration on Friday 5th October held in Honiara at the National Museum.

She informed the teachers that she is in the midst of leading the introduction of the new legislation to the education system.

“This is a very exciting moment as our education system has been operating under an education legislation since Independence of our country,” Minister Lanelle said.

She said the new legislation will have a set of accompanying legislative framework, which is a set of documents setting out rules and policy for ECE centres, schools, Education Authority, school leaders and teachers.

“I am confident that once Education Law passes and enacted, it will provide a fresh and clear approach to our education system. It will provide all you teachers and principals a clear and easy to follow way of undertaking your jobs at the highest level, as well as providing MEHRD and your Education Authorities with clear responsibilities and accountabilities,” the minister added.

She said this reform will be the foundation for great things to come”.

Minister Lanelle also highlighted the need to increase the teaching workforce to cater for an ever-increasing student population.

According to the recent Housing and National Census report (2019), teacher workforce is the largest single workforce in the country.

She said her ministry acknowledges that finding teachers for some locations or for some specialized subject areas can at times be challenging, and sometimes the administration of positions, transfers, salaries etc may sometimes be too slow.

MEHRD is determined to improve on the administration of teachers’ postings and timely payment of salaries of beginning teachers, and is currently in the process of establishing a fully functioning Education Management Information System, to ensure correct and up-to-date data from every school and ECE centre are obtained efficiently and analysed.

She said having accurate data will allow her ministry to make informed decisions about the employment of teachers in each and every school, as well as speed up administrative processes for teachers. This includes making informed decisions and allocating resources effectively.

On the professional development of teachers, the Minister of Education stated that the MEHRD had developed, launched and implementing currently, a Whole Educator Professional Development Framework, with the aim to upskilling teachers in pedagogy, assessment, curriculum and leadership roles they play in their schools. The impact that is expected from this is improved teaching that will yield improved student learning outcomes.

She said with the generous support of donor partners, in particular the governments of Australia and New Zealand, teachers across the country have so far benefited professionally and are contributing positively to the learning of their students. The teacher professional development programme will be continued in the years ahead until all teachers are reached and supported.