Caption: students graduating
By FIDELIS SUKINA
The Grade 12 selections for students into Institutions of
Higher Education for 2014 to 2015 ended last week, only one question remains.
What happens to the students that do not get an offer into
Institutions of Higher Education?
It is sad to hear that only a few spaces are available for
our grade 12 school leavers. The same story each year, I dread the day my
smaller siblings in the village reach the 12th grade.
We always had dreams when we were small, of the type of
person we wanted to be when we grew up.
Perhaps some of us achieved it or we later on in life heard a different calling and pursued a different dream.
Perhaps some of us achieved it or we later on in life heard a different calling and pursued a different dream.
Dreams are dreams but reality is the truth, every year
student’s graduate and every year the number increases.
When I had the opportunity to do my vacation employment with
the Office of Higher Education in 2010 during my 2nd Year break from
studies at the Divine Word University in Madang, I realized the reality of the
students who sat for exams every year.
Only 4400 plus spaces were available for 17,000 plus students
back then in 2010 to 2011, imagine that, after my vacation employment was over
I went back to DWU knowing that we were the cream of the country, the best of
the best who beat the odds and secured a space among the lucky few 4,000 plus
students every year.
Students lacked the guidance to make the right choice;
students didn’t know that the spaces were limited and that they were mostly
done on the first preferences only,
Some students who had
the chance of making it into technical colleges opted to try the Universities,
without realizing on average universities had spaces ranging from 50 to 20
spaces per program offered, some such as UPNG school of Science had 300 spaces
for 1st years that being the highest, while courses in Unitech and
Divine Word University took in less than 40 per program.
Students didn’t realize that their 1st choice
counted more than their second, in the fight for limited spaces your second
choice is someone else’s first choice.
UPNG and Unitech being the most popular and premium
universities, had many applicants they never passed Thursday in the week long
selections held every second week in December
This was because they always had the top students applying
for their first choices and quotas for programs were sometimes filled in on the
first day of selections.
So what about the others who probably did well with all B’s
but didn’t get into any Institution of Higher Education.
Well in a highly competitive arena right choices need to be
made, your first choice should have been a technical college or perhaps a
Business or Teachers College.
Because the ones with the A’s obviously will apply for
Universities as their first choices, while you apply for University as a first
choice your second choice is taken by someone who was smart enough to realize
your lapse in judgment.
Making you end up without an offer for all of your choices, with an
impressive GPA your wrong choices caused you a space in an institution of
Higher education.
Those schools who often don’t fill up their quotas go
through the Total Reject piles and pick out some students with impressive marks
but missed out for selection because of wrong choices.
I am not an expert in
the education system in PNG, but I know for sure that some so called top
students in schools in the rural areas get lower grades because of the low
performances by the whole student body causing the number of students in the
schools to get no A’s or B’s despite performing well in their internal marks.
Perhaps we need a new way to help students to guide them to
their right paths, parents don’t guide their students often, and when the
children do not get accepted for Higher Institutions, they are scolded.
All I can say is it is the system and we cannot get a
miracle overnight to help everyone proceed on to the next level of education.
Maybe parents and teachers could help students realize that
right choices according to marks can beat the system sometimes.
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