Outline of the Project

Project Name

EQUITV (Enhancing Quality in Teaching through TV Programs) Phase 2

Country

Papua New Guinea

Date of Agreement

February 1, 2012

Cooperation Period

From April 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015

Background

The Independent State of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a diverse landscape with a high mountain range that runs through the county's mainland as well as many islands, forests, lakes and swamps that make up some of the most rugged terrains in the world. More than 800 hundred tribes with own culture and language still continue to live in the remote area that is geographically constrained and has a deficit in basic infrastructures. Due to this problem the public services including education do not reach all of these areas.

Most primary and secondary schools in PNG are small and located in rural and isolated areas. Even school infrastructures and resource materials are limited while the number of teachers and the quality of education are insufficient. As a consequence the net enrolment rate in primary school, the main education indicator, was 52.9% in 2007. This rate is much lower than that of neighboring countries in South Pacific region. This rate indicates that the half of children who were supposed to be enrolled in failed to go to a primary school. Thus such insufficiency of educational environment has been affecting the result of national examination of 8th grade, the final grade of the compulsory education. The average point attains lower than 40 percent in most subjects.

What is EQUITV (Enhancing Quality in Teaching thorough TV Programs)?

In order to improve the status in education above the Department of Education (DoE) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) started, in collaboration, working on the EQUITV phase 1. In the phase 1 JICA project team provided the technical support to the DoE through the National Education Media Centre (NEMC) which was built through ODA (Official Development Assistance) of the Government of Japan. The programs so called model lessons for 6th and 7th grade Mathematics and Science were firstly recorded and broadcasted through TV. The project team conducted the monitoring survey on its effectiveness how the EQUITV could contribute to improve the status in education.

Through EQUITV students could have more access to quality of education wherever they live in urban or remote. In addition, EQUITV provided even teachers the opportunity to review their teaching skill and learn overall what the quality in education was. Such impact of EQUITV drew their attention in communities and brought the positive movement that some schools purchased the TV equipment themselves to introduce EQUITV.

EQUITV (Enhancing Quality in Teaching through TV Programs) Phase 1

In 1999, in order to support distance education the Government of Japan established the National Education Media Centre (NEMC). Department of Education (DoE) had been recognizing its potential of distance education and considering it a key to cover qualitative and quantitative shortcomings in educational environment. JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and DOE collaborated on the program named Distance Education utilizing Live Recording Broadcasting from 2002 to 2004. In the program broadcasting TV model lessons was proved efficient to improve the access to and quality of education in classrooms as follows;

• TV model lessons were supplementary used to insure the quality of classroom teaching.
• TV model lessons were used to compensate for insufficiency of teachers.
• TV model lessons provided teachers the opportunity to review their knowledge of subject and improve teaching skills that brought better understanding to students.

In order to boost these activities JICA and DoE agreed with 3-year project that was called Project for Enhancing Quality Teaching through TV Program, EQUITV phase 1,.
One of major outputs in EQUITV Phase 1 was to support building of institutional capacity of NEMC. JICA expert, for example, supported technical officers and model teachers so that they could enable to produce model lesson programs with the acceptable quality. NEMC and JICA experts worked on developing resource materials corresponding to model lesson programs such as Student workbook and Teacher's Guide Book. The project, in especial, supported Mathematics and Science in Grade 7 and 8.

Another aimed output was to disseminate the project and promote its utilization of TV programs in classrooms. In order to verify its efficacy and impact more precisely the project team intended to select two model provinces respectively from the urban and rural area.
In two model provinces, the training workshops were provided for teachers so that they became familiar with model lesson programs and learnt the practical way of introducing. Following the training workshops, the project team started activities to monitor whether model lesson programs were practically utilized in pilot schools in selected model provinces. In addition, the impact of model lessons how much they contributed to improve the quality of classroom teaching and student's understanding was observed.
In 2008, the end of phase 1 DoE assured the impact of model lesson program and officially requested JICA further assistance. With the aim of nationwide dissemination EQUITV Phase 2 was launched in May 2012.

EQUITV Phase 2 May 2012 – December 2015

Counterparts in PNG side

The goal of phase 2 is to establish the holistic system for achieving the nationwide dissemination of EQUITV program. To accomplish the goal JICA expert will work in cooperation with the following partners of three levels.

• At the national level;
• Department of Education (DoE)
• Curriculum Development &Assessment Division (CDAD)
• National Education Media Centre (NEMC)
• Standards & Guidance (S&G) Division
• Teacher Education Division (TED)
• Policy, Planning & Research (PPR) Division
• At the regional level;
• Regional Education Office (REO)
• At the provincial level;
• Provincial Division of Education (PDoE)

Target Areas (appendix 1. The Map of PNG)

• New Guinea Islands (NGI) Region: the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARB, target province in the phase 1), East New Britain Provicne (ENBP), West New Britain Province (WNBP), New Ireland Province (NIP) and Manus Province.
• Momase Region: East Sepik Province (ESP, target province in the phase 1), Madang Province, Sandaun Province and Morobe Province.
• Southern Region: the National Capital District (NCD) and Central Province.
• Highlands Region: Western Highlands Province (WHP).

Project Purpose

The system for disseminating EQUITV program at primary schools nationwide is strengthened.

【Outputs】

• Capacity of managing and disseminating EQUITV program at central, regional and provincial level is strengthened.
• Primary school teachers utilize EQUITV program in classroom teaching in the target provinces.
• Students at teachers colleges are familiarized with how to utilize EQTUIV program in classroom teaching.

In EUIQTV phase 2, the project team mainly works on the activities to develop the structure for achieving the nationwide dissemination of EQUIV Program. The project aims to help more schools have access to TV model lessons and the resource materials which were all developed in the phase 1. The structure has to remain sustainable enough so that people in PNG could continue themselves and achieve the goal after the project ends. Therefore in addition to the development of structure itself, the project provides further support to foster the institutional capacity and human resource.

In order to accomplish the nationwide dissemination, the project has to work in collaboration with the following institutions; (1) DoE at the national level, (2) educational administration both at the regional and provincial level, (3) primary schools at the cluster level. Aimed for achieving output "Capacity of managing and disseminating EQUITV program at national, regional and provincial levels is strengthened" the project will conduct the necessary training and workshops.

The project adopts the method called "cascade" for conducting the training and workshops through which the number of trainers and trainees are literally increased as it reaches the lower level. The Cascade method is comprised of three levels, National, Provincial and Cluster.
First of all, the project team selects the qualified officers and provides them the series of training of trainer (TOT). Trained officers become the National Trainers (NT) who provides the TOT at the provincial level. At the second level of cascade, the selected trainees participate in the TOT to become the Provincial Trainers (PT). At the third and last level of cascade, the PTs provide the EQUITV program workshops for people concerned in a cluster such as a teacher, principal, head teacher, and board of management. The number of trainer and participants at each level will be increased, for instance, 10 for NT, 35~40 for PT and hundreds for the cluster.

The training workshop at the cluster level above is aimed for achieving output 2 "Primary school teachers utilize EQUITV program in classroom teaching in the target province" The module is composed of the instruction in sequence how to introduce and utilize the EQUITV Program in classroom teaching through which all trainees become capable of utilizing EQUITV Program right after the workshop.
In addition, the module includes the instruction how to conduct the activities for awareness raising and advocacy. As being unable to provide the TV equipment throughout the target provinces those equipments have to be procured by the schools, communities or potential supporters such as private enterprises, members of parliament and so on. It is expected for trainees at the cluster level to work on their communities and schools while the project aims to work on the advocacy at the higher level.

On the other hand the project plans the activities targeting another resource, teachers colleges. Every year certain number of students graduate from the colleges and are assigned to primary schools as a beginning teacher. The students at teachers colleges are regarded as useful to the dissemination of EQUITV program which resulted in setting output 3 "Students at teachers colleges are familiarized with how to utilize EQTUIV program in classroom teaching". In order to achieve output 3 the project introduces the EQUITV program in the curriculum at 10 target teachers colleges.