OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS KILL EDUCATION

In the high schools of Papua New Guinea, there is a deep and foolish focus on testing by objective questions in many subjects. This causes problems for students who may find difficulty in understanding the question asked:

The population of Papua New Guinea is rising because of:

a. high birth rate,

b. reduced death rate,

c. migration from West Papua or 

d. drift to the cities.

What is the answer? Each response is partly correct. But students will fail if they do not choose a. Objective questions have pushed schools into a lazy and incompetent approach to learning. The students often lack the English to answer. So they tick and flick whatever they think is the answer. 

Objective questions make it easy for students to cheat. They would find it more difficult to cheat with short answer questions.

The Department will stop the cheating if they published in the months before the exam, a list of 80 short answer questions to cover each subject. Students would be told that 5 of these questions will appear on the exam paper for each subject.  Each question would require a quality reasoned explanation by the students.

Students can work in study groups and practise the answers. There is no such accusation as cheating that can be made. All students are working from the same published questions. Focus in schools would change to writing skills not just mindless tick and flick responses.

They would force students away from the horror of difficult objective questions. Many teachers are incompetent at objective question design. Many deliberately make the questions too difficult. Some will make questions not valid by incorrect response alternatives.

A student can know the answer but be confused by the alternatives in objective questions. That is not a valid test. If objective questions are set, the Department must have a test bank. 

Before each question is accepted into the test bank, there has to be a trial by teachers and students with the majority choosing the correct response.

A short answer can give the solution to a small problem which requires the student to write 6-10 lines on the subject. Preparation in class has the double purpose of promoting writing skills. It would stop cheating and become team study.

So many students can not write their ideas. Many have a working vocabulary of 300 baby words. So when they prepare an assignment in high school or university, the trick is to copy from a book without acknowledgment. This is called plagiarism.

Students must be tested on what they know, not on what they do not know. Teachers must help students to achieve success. Many teachers in PNG think their job is to fail students.

Bruce Copeland BA BEdSt (University of Queensland)

Teacher in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Since 2011, Geoffrey Nape ex-speaker of the Papua New Guinea parliament has made my life hell by stealing my elder daughter by child trafficking while I was recuperating from tuberculosis. He took a 14 year old girl and claimed her as his own.

He thinks that as a white man I am stupid and cowardly and afraid to confront him and his drunken Chimbu tribesmen. He has recently made veiled threats that if I give him trouble up to the 2017 election, I will die.

Now this paedophile Chimbu wants to take my second daughter 17 years old. He has horrified my first daughter who does not want her little sister as her sister-in-law. But Nape is the boss in that family.

He tells me he is a Chimbu chief and has made my family Chimbu and subject to all his commands. That means that I have to hand over my second daughter to him. I will kill him if he takes her and makes her pregnant.

I plan to move out of Port Moresby with my younger daughter. But Nape forbids it. He says she is a Chimbu and subject to his commands. This fool plans to be elected in 2017 and become Prime Minister or Governor General.

I have been alone bringing up my daughters from babies. But Nape has other ideas. My children’s mother has mysteriously arrived by air from the highlands. It has to be that Nape paid the fare. He now says that she is my wife after 17 years separation. He demands that I look after her.

He says that I have no right over my daughters as an expatriate and that he will negotiate to keep my second daughter through the mother.

He is supported by a great herd of Chimbu drunks around his palace in North Waigani. As the father of my first daughter, I am not allowed to enter his property and would be bashed by the security guards if I tried. He will pay for them to fly to Chimbu to vote.

He would be most unfit to serve in high office if he should be elected in 2017. He is a liar and con-man. He seems to prefer sex with young girls.

He cannot keep to the same view twenty minutes at a time. He will send me a text one minute calling me his brother. Half an hour later, he will send a text calling me a stupid arsehole. There seem to be a few mental connections loose.

He will tell me that I am the father and have the right to care for my daughter. An hour later, he will text that he is her chief and I have to get his permission to take her out of Port Moresby. He is nuts.

He is doing his best to stop me and my daughter from leaving Port Moreby. He says his Chimbu tribesmen will stop us. My younger child belongs to him so the creep thinks. I am just a Chimbu tribesman.

Recently he sent a text : “You must always abide by my management. If you don’t obey me, I will penalize you from my tribe and you will be cast out. You will be assessed by your day to day life. If I feel you should return to the tribe, I will notify you.”

Does this mean I have to become a fat Chimbu drunk? No thanks chiefy. Just keep away from my daughter. Point your penis somewhere else. He abuses me for not accepting that he is the top political figure in the nation.

He says that when he takes control of my daughter, he will ban her mobile phone. That is to block any contact with her father. She will not be allowed to have friends. 

She will be escorted to school and brought back to his palace and locked behind a steel gate. Then she will leave school on becoming pregnant to Nape.

He will be a Prime Minister or Governor General with no gender equity. My daughter will belong to him way past the age of consent. She will not be allowed to meet her father.