LITERACY continues to be a challenge for primary school students in the Pacific, says Education Quality Assessment Programme director Michelle Belisle.
Speaking to this newspaper during a Pacific Island Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) steering committee meeting in Nadi this week, she said there were hopes that the 2018 results — being analysed and discussed at present — would show improvements over the 2012-2015 results.
“When we reported from 2012 to 2015, there was quite significant growth in numeracy, but not so much growth in literacy,” Ms Belisle said.
“The 2015 report was able to pinpoint some of the specifics around literacy that could be looked at. We made note that there was significant need in the area of writing for boys in Year 6 at that point in time.
“So we are hopeful to see the results of the efforts countries have made in those intervening three years.”
Ms Belisle said there were a number of possible reasons for the continuing issues with literacy.
“There have been lots of theories posed — a lot of countries in the past five to 10 years have shifted from the language of instruction from being English overall to vernacular in the first three years. That’s been a policy shift in some countries.
“There have been questions asked in our contextual survey this year about the language spoken at home, the language of instruction at school and language teachers use informally in the classroom.”
