Tonga picks up tips from New Zealand to improve education

Transcript

Tonga's Minister of Education is hoping to pick up some useful tips from a New Zealand school to help improve regressing education in Tonga.

Dr Ana Taufe'ulungaki's visit to Mt Cook Primary school in Wellington comes before this weekend's International Summit on the Teaching Profession in Wellington.

The summit, bringing together Education Ministers, teacher leaders and heads of teacher unions from around the world, is one of the most significant education events on the international calendar.

Dr Ana Taufe'ulungaki spoke to Indira Moala.

DR. ANA TAUFE'ULUNGAKI: These are the top 25 education performing countries in the world, and they have some very useful lessons to learn - I mean for us, some useful lessons to learn from them. And see how they are able to improve education, to achieve excellence and equity and inclusiveness.

INDIRA MOALA: Despite the fact that Tonga has a high literacy rate and a high rate of university graduates, and Tonga even boasts of being the highest number of PhD holders per population of any nation, many families who desire a first world education for their children are still more inclined to send them overseas. Why do you think that is?

AN: Well I think it's natural that they desire to do better for their children. We have a fairly good education system in Tonga, but we cannot offer the variety and the quality of education that is available overseas. So it's natural that parents want to give the best to their children.

IM: Last year, despite all the activities and reform programmes carried out by the Department of Education in Tonga, you admitted disappointment in the results. You said, I quote - "Most worrying of all is that Tonga appears to be regressing instead of improving." Why do you think that is?

AN: In terms of literacy and numeracy achievement, we haven't been doing as well as we expect and in the standardised tests that we have administered to date, it has demonstrated regression rather than improvement. So the new interventions we are putting in place that I have mentioned previously; we've got Mission New Zealand and the Pearl programme with the World Bank - hopefully those interventions will make the difference. Because we seem to have been doing everything that we can to reform the system but we are not actually moving forward. So we need to know what is actually happening in the classroom.

IM: I know that you're a strong advocate for children learning to read and write in their mother tongue, and that shows in the education reform in Tonga. How did you feel about talking to Sandra, the principal here, and seeing that a New Zealand school which has twenty five different cultures, values that same notion as well?

AN: I think it's splendid and they are doing very well in the few classrooms that I have visited. They have clearly demonstrated the recognition and the valuing of the different cultures and languages of the children. And allowing the children to take pride in who they are. So I think it's a very good thing and one of the things that I need to take back to our communities in Tonga and the parents. To tell them that they need to value our Tongan culture and our Tongan language and make sure that these values are embedded in the education system and make sure that their children are competent in their first language before going to school.