GIFF JOHNSON
The policy driving high schools to focus on educating young people to meet college requirements has been so all-encompassing that island school systems neglected the idea of preparing young people to be contributing members of their local communities whether or not they make it to college.
As Marshall Islands public high schools embark this month on a new, four-prong education program, the head of a regional education group and long-time teacher and principal in the FSM is working with the RMI Public School System to roll it out.
Paul Hadik, president and CEO of the Honolulu-based Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, spoke with the Journal about PSS’s plan to implement a broader achievement focus for its public high schools starting this year. Hadik spent many years as an educator in the Federated States of Micronesia. This included three years as principal of Kosrae High School followed by four years as director of Education in Kosrae, then seven years as principal of Chuuk High School before taking up the PREL position in 2017.
The new-for-the-RMI approach emphasizes the point that not all young people want to attend college or will be able to meet the requirements for a tertiary education.
“For the last 40 years, especially since the Compact funding was directed to education, education goals have focused on English and math (achievement) with the goal of students going to college,” said Hadik. “It boils down to test scores.”
Those that score high enough to meet college entrance requirements leave the islands, while “others don’t have the skills needed to benefit the local community,” Hadik said.
Hadik said he came to the realization as a teacher and principal in Chuuk that the emphasis on improving test scores was not helping the FSM state with the array of needs.
In the process of honing the focus in on test results — the Marshall Islands Standard Achievement Test (MISAT) is a case in point — local skills were forgotten, Hadik said. During a visit last month to Majuro to work with Marshallese public high school principals, Hadik observed that construction workers in Majuro are largely non-Marshallese, and most of the food is imported. “People are not being taught how to live on an island, to grow food,” he said.
He then posed the question: What is a Pacific Islands school? What it is not or shouldn’t be, he said, is a school for Pacific Islanders to catch up to western education requirements. The answer to the question is nuanced and needs an understanding of needs in island communities, he said.
This is why the Marshall Islands Public School System recently adopted a new four-track system for the high schools. The four tracks aim to prepare students for college, vocational skills, island life, and the US military.
For many years, the high school system in RMI has been one-track and doesn’t meet needs of all the students or the needs of the communities in RMI, Hadik said. “The communities (in RMI and FSM) have different needs,” Hadik said, particularly when comparing urban areas with remote outer islands. “The education race track still has a finish line, but we’ve added three more finish lines,” he said of the new four-track system.
For each of the four tracks, there are monitoring systems to assess progress, he said. For vocational, for example, how many graduating students attain jobs is one method for assessing progress, just as the number of students who can pass the US military ASVAB exam in order to gain entrance to the US military is a way to evaluate the military track of the program.
Hadik acknowledged that there may be some challenges in rolling out the new four-track program going forward. “But it will not be any worse than we’re doing now,” he said.
Hadik talked about the practical side of delivering a four-track high school education program.
- College track: Students are grouped by ability and the focus is college preparation: critical thinking, writing, math, science, current events, computer literacy. The aim is to get local seniors as close to a US high school graduate as possible, he said. When this was done in Kosrae and Chuuk in recent years, Hadik saw results skyrocket and most seniors in the college track getting into college. “It restored pride,” he added.
- Vocational track: This is preparation to have a marketable skill when done with school. In the past, vocational education was heavy on theory with little practical experience. “Most schools do one course a year,” he said. “It’s not enough and doesn’t provide marketable skills.” A vocational training program doesn’t have to be four years long. The goal is training to the point that a young person can get a job. For example, Hadik suggests, a small engine repair program could have a person qualified in one year. What Majuro needs is different from what Jaluit or Wotje need, he pointed out.
- Island track: This would align with teaching traditional skills, ranging from medicine to agriculture to canoe building and culture. “We’ve taken the history, who we are, out of our schools,” said Hadik. This track would put it front and center, including emphasizing language skills, better diet, conservation lifestyle through fishing skills and cultural norms. “It may be a small percentage of students (in the island track) but it is an important segment of young people,” Hadik said.
- Military track: The US military is a legitimate option for young people, Hadik said. There are many high school students who drop out or just barely pass and are not inclined to college. This track aims to take 18 and older students on a one-year program for passing the ASVAB entrance test. If they can pass the ASVAB, then they also receive a high school diploma (which is a requirement for entry into the US military), Hadik said. The military offers a variety of training options for island recruits, he added.
These are among ways that Marshall Islands or Micronesian students can be successful, including through these four tracks, he said.