World Bank Report targets primary school teachers and student learning  

A total of 25 percent of Primary School Teachers across P-N-G, are not using effective teaching strategies.

A World Bank Report has found that teachers currently struggle with "a poor mastery of content knowledge, weak teaching practices and widespread absenteeism".

World Bank Senior Education Specialist Joy Wong says teachers need to know what they're teaching and how to teach it. But from what we found 25% of primary school teachers are not using effective teaching strategies for example giving their students feedback or checking for understanding.

Further to the report findings, 25% of teachers in Gr. 2 when they were given a Gr. 2 Math assessment did not pass. This shows that primary-level school teachers are not confident with the content they are teaching.

She said, "If the teacher is not confident with the content, the student is not going to learn that content. So teachers need to be ready to teach."

The World Bank has recommended cost-effective professional development programs for delivering targeted instruction to students using structured lesson plans and adopting educational technology.

The country's Education sector has been unable to keep up with its growth over the years.

in the last 20 years, the number of students, teachers, and schools has doubled, while the sector struggled to keep up with these changes.

The report revealed that 90% of teachers are currently waiting for an inspection for full registration and confirmation of a position. The delay is affecting the motivation of teachers and the attractiveness of the profession.

In the last 10 years, though there has been an absolute increase in budgetary allocation for education. Because of increases in prices, inflation, and increased student numbers, the per-student allocation has been dropping. For the last 10 years, the per-student allocation has dropped by 21 %.

"There is not a single country that we know of that has been able to address the challenges that PNG faces with the shrinking budgetary allocation so that is quite serious, said the Senior Education Specialist."