PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

By Sebastian Mugup

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PNG Post-Courier, May 17, 2009) – The Papua New Guinean Constitution guarantees equality and participation within the National Goals and Directive Principles.

However, gender inequality in PNG is widespread and improvements have been minimal.

Factors affecting girls dropping out of schools in PNG are many and varied, some of which I will discuss in this article.

The official minimum entry age to Grade One is six years old. However, most female students entering Grade One are over the age of six. This may be because girls are kept at home to help with household chores or because most parents feel they are not mature enough to attend school at the entry age.

Therefore, they are held back at home to grow older before attending school. However, when girls start school at an older age they are often teased and discouraged by their peers because of being older in a junior grade.

And when they reach puberty while they are still in school, they are often forced to leave by their parents in order to get married.

Most parents in the rural areas cannot afford to pay their children’s school fees. Often the son has first preference over the daughter when choosing whose fees to pay. The girl stays home to help with gardening and household chores while the boy attends school because he is regarded as an investment.

Formal education has become very expensive to pursue. Income-earning parents with few children may afford the school fees while non income-earning parents may not be able to.

Most parents in rural areas cannot afford to pay all their children’s school fees.

Schooling is not free and even when subsidised by governments, parents still pay a bigger proportion.

Financial difficulties experienced by the majority of rural families prevent them from sending their children to school, especially girls. Where there are large families, boys are given preference over girls.

Most parents want to know what the learning environment is like before they enroll their children in schools. They want their daughters to attend or reside in a school with suitable study facilities, has toilets, water and security.

Many parents are reluctant to send their daughters to schools where there are no proper facilities. Where schools are accessible, sometimes there are not enough buildings or classrooms to cater for all the children.

Classrooms are overcrowded and the environment is not conducive to learning. There are no separate toilets for boys and girls and even recreational facilities are not provided. Often, girls’ needs are ignored. Some school environments are only oriented towards the needs of boys.

Most schools in urban areas are well equipped. However, rural schools have inadequate facilities that act as main barriers for girls’ participation in school activities. For example, frequent break-ins at the female dormitories force parents to take their daughters out of school

Teachers as role models of the students should behave in an acceptable manner to them. Students learn well from teachers who have empathy for them. Many girls leave school because some teachers favour boys over girls in class.

They may show bias towards boys, which is also a product of their own socialisation.

Because of this, teachers treat boys and girls differently. They may ask the boys to do the difficult tasks and answer most questions.

As a result, many girls leave school because they are not given appropriate attention.

Peer attitude also contributes towards girls dropping out of school. Most girls leave school as a result of their peers’ anti-social treatment. They often find it difficult to respond to their negative pressures.

Also most girls tend to leave school when boys tease them or ask them to be their girlfriends.

Sexual liaisons, sexual assaults and threats of assaults on girls by male teachers and students are reported nationwide.

Girls who continue in school would suffer repeated intimidation, actual assault, or bullying by teachers who expect sexual favours as the price of academic access or success.

Girls live in fear in a school environment where there is a high prevalence of sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, threats of sexual assault and threats of negative repercussions unless they agree to sexual intimacies with teachers.

Where these behaviours by male students, teachers, or other males in schools are tolerated and there is no protection for girls, going to school can amount to offering oneself as a victim.

Such an atmosphere is not conducive to learning. There are cases where teachers have affairs with school girls and out of fear of retaliation and social criticism, the girls suffer in silence.

They withdraw from school for fear of being either sexually or physically assaulted by males.

Some ways to address impediments to girls’ education include:

• Enrolling the girl-child at age six so that formal education takes place early with the child’s physical and mental development;
• The government should heavily subsidise female education or even make it free especially, in disadvantaged provinces.
• Also more scholarships should be provided, including positive action programs and a quota system for girls.
• The provision of better school facilities for girls. Physical infrastructure should attract and retain girls at school;
• There should be no bias in the classroom. Boys and girls should be treated equally with regard to physical and academic works. Teachers are role models of the students and they should not favor one gender over the other; and
• The importance of educating girls should be communicated to all homes in PNG.
• Sebastian Mugup is a cadet researcher in the Education Studies Division at the National Research Institute.

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