Islands Business - Education: REVOLUTIONISING EDUCATION

EU helps bring classes to the rural Solomons

Evan Wasuka
An education revolution is taking place in the Solomon Islands. It is being spearheaded by rural development centres in the country’s nine provinces.

Here how it works... Education Minister Dr Derrick Sikua (middle) gets a rundown on how the project works.

Spread out over 28,400 kilometres of land mass, these centres are part of a pilot project funded by the European Union and operated under the Education Ministry’s reform programme aimed at providing education to some of the country’s outlying areas.

The nine centres, hosted by a community high school will be connected by broadband internet through satellite ground stations (VSAT) powered by solar panels, with the aim of improving access to education for rural people. The potential for distance learning is huge in a country where the vast majority of the population live in rural areas scattered over some 1000 islands.

After three years of planning and groundwork, one centre in Makira Province is already online and others, says Education Minister Dr Derrick Sikua, will follow over the next three to four months, with the EU handing over S$2.2 million worth of solar and IT equipment to power the centres.

It is a three-year project that started in December 2004 and now has been extended to the end of 2007.

Stakeholders are confident the use of satellite technology will overcome the crippling effects of distance between the islands, poor communication and dismal postal services.

“We can focus on the needs of students in schools, teachers who need upgrading and support in their training, people who left school and adults who wish to continue with their education,” said Sikua.

The project’s courses are available online via the www.schoolnet.net.sb and provides access to basic education and tertiary level courses.

“The courses are suitable for people for higher education and employment and business in line with the government’s thinking on national skills development,” said Sikua.

Though it’s early days yet, the initial indicators are promising with 12 community members from areas surrounding the Makira centre signing on for basic courses and an additional eight handing in applications for the University of South Pacific’s distance programme.

“Many of these enrolments are by teachers which show that the centres are already impacting in the priority area of teacher professional development,” said the education minister.

The pilot project has also attracted the attention of other education providers including Papua New Guinea’s Open College. Its officials, according to Sikua, have been talking to the ministry about providing their course materials to the project.

The Papua New Guinea institute has operated similar education programmes in Papua New Guinea’s Eastern Highlands for teachers. And it is the training of teachers that stakeholders hope will receive a major boost by the set-up of the network.

By using the network to train teachers scattered throughout the country’s provinces, education stakeholders are hoping to avoid the high cost of sending people overseas or bringing them to Honiara for training.

Funding for the project comes from the European Union’s Stabex 99 funds and NZAID through the ministry of education with project management carried out by the Development Volunteers Association of the People First Network, the same organisation that has successfully established email and internet stations throughout the country’s rural areas.

The birth of the project dates back to 2002 when the People First Network (PFnet) and USP conducted distance education trials using the PFnet network.

The trials were judged successful and it was recommended a national pilot project should build on them. This recommendation was accepted by the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development and led to the formulation and inclusion of the DLCP as part of the ESIRP.

The European Union’s charge-de-affairs Henry Prankerd says he was unsure about the success of the project when he was approached for funding three years ago. But he said the progress made had been impressive.

The locations of each of the nine development centres were selected by an education committee.

Each centre is equipped with six laptop computers, printers and scanners, an HF radio and full-time supervisors to man the centres.

The Peoples First Network says the VSAT network will have the capacity to allow live lectures and other learning activities to be broadcast to all the centres simultaneously.

“This will facilitate satellite tutorials where remote tutors can interact in real-time with students.”

At the end of each school day and during the weekends the centres will become internet cafes and will be available for use by members of the communities.

“They can send emails, keep in touch with friends and relations, do business and check on prices of commodities through the internet,” said Prankerd.

The first centre to get online in September was St Stephen’s Community College, on the north coast of Makira Island, an hour’s canoe ride from Makira’s provincial capital, Kirakira.

The college consists of Pamua National Secondary School, Pamua Primary School and St Stephen’s Rural Training College with a combined school roll of 560 students.

The next centres to follow are Guguha in Isabel, Vuranimala in Central Province, Bekabeka in Western Province, Arnon Atomea in North Maliata and Avuavu on Guadalcanal.

Prankerd says apart from the nine pilot centres, the service could be extended to other schools as the cost of IT drops and projects become affordable.

But in the end, the success and survival of the rural development centres will depend on each one being financially viable.

Either way the implications of this project on the Solomon Islands is massive, with the same mode applicable to health, forestry and fisheries sectors.