Developing PNG Leadership by Ralph Tarasomo

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Developing PNG Leadership by Ralph Tarasomo
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Building PNG Leadership within the International
Education Agency

• In many ways IEA Schools are managed and
  subsequently act like their counterparts in the
  Western World.
• Budgets, systems, organisations, programmes
  shape
• the vision and philosophy.
• Starting and finishing times, periods, schedules
• follow a white-mans clock. One Minute
  Managers,
• Seven Habits and Gung Ho! become the
• management buzzwords.

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• The cultural background Papua New Guinean
• Principals bring to the job with a focus on
• values, wisdom, and expectations of a
• community where the group is more
• important than the individual are sublimated
• by the expectations of expatriate leaders who
• insist that schools be run using industrial
• models.

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• The industrial model works on basic values of
  redesign, it focuses on the notion that we are in
  charge and can control the nature of change.
• Senge(2000), Weick (2001), Caine and
• Caine(199713) talk about an industrial
• model school as one that we can
• 'restructure by working out what each part
• does and then changing the parts so that
• each part works better'.

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• The challenges for new leaders of IEA Schools is
  to critically examine schools and find ways that
  they can better reflect cultural diversity and
  non-white people's value systems.
• In the first instance IEA needs to accept that
  schools are complex dynamic organisations.

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• Diversity of student cultures.

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• IEA Schools can not continue to under-represent
  local culture and community in their daily life.
• Local histories, local science and celebrations
  are the day to day life of the students who
  attend IEA Schools. Once a year Independence Day
  celebrations where students dress and dance in
  their local way does not constitute a valuing of
  ones culture. IEA students should not be
  disconnected from ones social and geographic
  background

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• IEA need to consider new training paradigms for
  its Teacher Education Programme. If this
  programme is to engage training teachers in
  meaningful culturally appropriate learning,
  decisions need to be made about the nature of
  learning itself and about the inclusion of
  indigenous knowledge in the curriculum.

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• A balanced formal curriculum.
• Paulias Matane (197264) writes about his first
  day at school
• We sat down on the dirt floor but the pastor told
  us to stand up straight
• and not to move. Then he said, Good morning
  girls and boys.
• We all said, Good morning girls and boys.
• The pastor said, Its not like that. Say, Good
  morning, sir.
• We all said, Say, good morning sir.
• The pastor said, Now sit down.
• We in chorus said, Now sit down.
• He spoke in our language telling us to follow
  what he said and did.
• Sit down, he said.
• Sit down, we all said. We remained standing.
• I am telling you to sit on the ground.
• I am telling you to sit on the ground, we said.
• The pastor pushed us to the ground to sit.
• He tried to teach us some songs but we made a lot
  of mistakes. This made
• him extremely angry and he hit our hands with a
  cane.
• Then he said, Get out of here before I break
  this cane.

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• Matane (197265) goes on to explain
• Why do our fathers want that cruel devil?
• He made fools of us by ordering us to stand in
  lines, stand, and sit and he taught us those
  silly words which I cannot remember- what they
  are and what they mean- nor do I care. I do not
  want to be treated like this and I am happier
  staying in the mens house.
• Surely for a student growing up in Papua New
  Guinea the things around them are important most
  important.
• Such a view is supported by Caine and Caine
  (199718) who state that 'active learners are
  totally immersed in their world and learn from
  their entire experience. Children, the saying
  goes, "learn what they live"'. These approaches
  to learning provide a challenge for the leaders
  of IEA International Schools in that it is
  important 'to fit skills and content to the
  learner, rather than fit the learner to the
  curriculum' Caine and Caine (199719). Such a
  view places children and their local (PNG)
  perspective at the centre.

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• The challenges for the organisation is to move
  away from its current policies of localisation to
  policies of decolonisation which acknowledge and
  promote the strengths local communities and
  culture.
• IEA is an important educational, social and
  political institution in Papua New Guinea and its
  values, beliefs and practices will influence the
  countrys tomorrow.