JEALOUSY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA SCHOOLS

There is a sad phenomonen in PNG schools. That is that students in class drag the brighter students down to the class average by threats of violence.

Years ago, I had a grade 7 class at Bumayong High School. There was a very clever girl in class who knew the answers to questions and was always ready to help.

In the new class, she kept doing that for about 3 weeks and then abruptly stopped to become as non-contributing as the rest of the class. She just sat like a log. But she completed the year.

I moved on at the end of that year but met her in the street in Port Moresby many years later. She was doing post-graduate studies at the University of Papua New Guinea.

My elder daughter had the same problem at school. Her spoken English is excellent and she likes to contribute. But in her class, she was long ago told abruptly to shut up “you white bitch”. So she just sits.

That is why students in PNG classes never show the results of their tests. It is all confidential. Smarter students do not want to be punished by the slower students. They just sit quietly and do brilliant work.