GIFF JOHNSON
The Public School System in the Marshall Islands is made up of a thousand moving parts, with multiple differences and nuances in delivering education in Majuro, Ebeye and outer islands where there is a gradient for the term “remote.” One size does not fit all in the Marshall Islands.
Recently installed Education Commissioner Natalie Nimmer is no stranger when it comes to understanding the multiple dimensions of public education delivery in RMI. She worked at Northern Islands High School in Wotje, she was a principal at Majuro Cooperative School, she’s been involved in implementing the University of Hawaii’s master’s degree program for the RMI, and her PhD dissertation was titled “Documenting a Marshallese Indigenous Learning Framework.”
Still, the minute-by-minute demands on the Education Commissioner make even medium-range planning a challenge.
Nimmer hit the ground running in June as the Micronesian Games dominated everyone’s attention, particularly at PSS, whose facilities and staff were a major focus of Games support. That segued into involvement in the regional Triennial Conference of Pacific Women, which was quickly followed by preparations for the first US-RMI meeting of JEMFAC, the financial oversight committee. Then she was named as the first-ever RMI educator to chair the board of REL Pacific, the Hawaii-based organization that represents and supports program in US-affiliated islands.
Despite all the distractions, Nimmer set one major initiative into motion for the new school year: She did away with the “pre-nine” designation and directed that all students who passed the entrance test would be enrolled into ninth grade. “We couldn’t change the policy of MISAT (which was already conducted last April and May), but we could change (the system for entering high school),” she said. “Everyone who passes the eighth grade MISAT test goes to ninth.”
This kicked off a further process of evaluation of homework, tests and quizzes during the first quarter to determine which students need extra help. “It’s not just based on one test score,” she said, adding that in the past they found after a quarter or two that some pre-nine students were doing better than those who went straight to ninth grade.
In the meantime, when the August 19 start date for “all” public schools rolled around, the usual problems appeared: Dozens of teachers and students weren’t at their schools in the outer islands — a combination of transportation challenges and out-migration.
By mid-September, the new Commissioner could finally begin looking at bigger picture education issues that swirl around public education in the RMI.
These include focusing on:
- Improving instructional effectiveness. Nimmer is engaging the ministry staff to roll out the “educational effectiveness system.”
- Out-migration. The impact of out-migration from the outer islands has led to some islands having very small student enrollment, leading to multi-grade classrooms. Multi-grade classes are challenging for teachers in the outer islands, many of whom are not trained for this system of instruction. Not surprisingly, this situation results in the expected standard for each of the grades being taught in one classroom not being met. Nimmer said PSS is looking at evaluating multi-grade classrooms.
- Management of remote schools and classrooms. Nimmer said PSS is sponsoring a study tour to the Big Island of Hawaii to engage with a program that runs a main school with two more rural schools under its supervision. Another element of the educational tour for PSS staff will be to Kauai to a school where instruction is multi-grade in the same classroom because of relatively small numbers of students. The Kauai school to be visited has students from Niihau, who are taught both the Ni’ihau language as well as English. Because competency in Ni’ihau language is limited, some of the teachers don’t have college degrees but meet the need for fluency in the Niihau dialect of Hawaiian language. As in the RMI, Hawaii law requires that teachers must have college degrees. “But the reality is different for both Marshall Islands and Kauai schools,” said Nimmer. To meet the Hawaii law in the context of this Kauai school, a degreed teacher oversees all four of the multi-grade classrooms in the school. Nimmer hopes the upcoming exchange will offer ideas to RMI educators for improvements at home.
- Getting teachers to show up on time. “What does it mean to take our job seriously?” Nimmer asked. She is being hands-on in her approach to promoting positive action in public schools. Since the school year started, the Commissioner has been making unannounced visits to different public schools. She makes it a point to check the teacher sign in sheet for the school she visits.
“If I see a class without a teacher, I start teaching until the regular teacher shows up,” she said. “It’s not to embarrass teachers, but to show my interest in the students and visiting the schools.” - Workforce challenges. Here is a snapshot of the teaching workforce at PSS schools. The ages range from as young as 19 years to teachers who are hired on “retiree” contracts when they are past the normal retirement age. Because of a shortage of teachers, PSS has 100 teachers on so-called retiree contracts. In part this is a response to out-migration. “The 30-50 age group is not here,” Nimmer said.
An additional element in the mix is the declining health of many Marshallese teachers above 30 years of age. Diabetes is a pervasive problem in RMI and the results in some teachers ending up in the hospital a lot, according to Nimmer. - Pilot teacher program. Nimmer first came to the Marshall Islands as a WorldTeach volunteer teacher. From living and working in Hawaii in recent years, she points out that high-achieving Marshallese students in the Hawaii school styes are interested to come home to visit and possibly work. “Can we create a WorldTeach-like program for Marshallese?” she asked. Nimmer is doing more than asking, she’s setting in motion a pilot with funding for six teaching positions in the FY2025 budget. “We are looking for candidates to fill vacancies in various schools,” she said.
- Time management. “RMI Secretaries are on too many committees,” Nimmer said. She rattled off a list of about 15 RMI committees and task forces she is on. It distracts from the secretary’s or in her case, commissioner’s focus on their own area of responsibly. “When do I have time for education?”
“There is so much to do,” Nimmer told the Journal in an interview. While acknowledging limitations of data on education in the RMI, Nimmer noted that “We are looking at data to understand what needs to be done.”
One measure to promote improvements was taken by PSS in the new national budget that went into effect October 1. The salaries of all school-based staff were raised this year. She said PSS purposely did not raise salaries for headquarters staff to reduce the incentive for teachers to jump to jobs in PSS headquarters.
In the big picture, Nimmer a basic goal that guides her thinking is simple: “I want our schools to be better so people don’t feel they have to put their children in private schools or leave the country.”