Pacific news in brief for 12 June
Photo:
Facebook / PM Press
Tonga Prime Minister ʻAisake Eke hopes a new Tongan consulate in Fiji will ease visa processing delays.
Talanoa O Tonga
reported the consulate is set to be opened in January.
Tongan students studying in Fiji and Vanuatu have experienced visa delays of up to four months, disrupting their education.
Recent reports show Tongan students have been turned away at borders despite visa-free agreements.
The consulate is expected to handle visa applications and community support directly, reducing administrative burdens.
In Vanuatu, the government says it has appointed a special team to negotiate with teachers on a collective agreement.
For more than a year, the government and members of the teachers' union have been embroiled in an industrial dispute.
This started in June last year when teachers across the country went on strike over over what the union called long-standing pay remuneration problems.
The government agency in charge of appointing teachers responded by suspending 600 teachers.
The ongoing legal case is now before the Court of Appeal, after the Supreme Court found the industrial action by teachers to be lawful.
The
Vanuatu Daily Post
reported the government formed its negotiating team this week because student's learning was being negatively affected.
Pacific leaders have issued a unified call for urgent global action to protect the world's largest tuna production region from the accelerating impacts of climate change.
The call was made at the 3rd UN Oceans Conference in France during an event on Tuesday.
Tuvalu Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, who opened the event, said Pacific islands rely deeply on tuna resources, adding that tuna is not just food or revenue - it is sovereignty, it is development, and it is dignity.
He also highlighted the Pacific's global leadership in sustainable fisheries management which has been going for decades.
Pacific leaders from Niue, PNG, Palau, FSM, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati and Marshall Islands were also at the event.
Australia will now begin selecting people from Tuvalu for permanent residency as part of its Falepili Union Treaty.
There are 280 spots up for grabs each year, allowing people to live, work and study there.
Australia's Pacific Island affairs minister, Pat Conroy, said this is the most significant agreement between Australia and a Pacific country in four decades.
The last being the agreements for PNG's independence in 1975.
The Falepili Union is the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world that recognises Tuvalu's statehood and sovereignty will continue, even when climate change-related sea level rise swallows the land.
A pay rise proposed by the Remuneration Tribunal for the police and prisons ministry, worth more than US$1 million or 3.2 million Samoan tala, has been stalled because of the budget failure.
The
Samoa Observer
reported more than 900 law enforcement officers are impacted.
The unsuccessful budget noted that the recommendation from the Remuneration Tribunal was accepted by the finance ministry.
The plan was that once the increment in the salary scale is rolled out, there will be no more raises for the ministry.
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RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
'We'll see': Hu'akavameiliku on becoming Tongan PM again
Tonga Prime Minister, Hu'akavameiliku in Nuku'alofa. 25 August 2024 Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis The former Tongan Prime Minister Hu'akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni will not confirm or deny whether returning to the role is on his mind. Tonga goes to the polls in November, and several agenda items must be addressed before the Legislative Assembly (parliament) wraps up this week. Hu'akavameiliku brushed off a question about running for Prime Minister at the end of an interview with RNZ Pacific, which focused on last week's tsunami alert off the coast of Russia. "One step at a time. I'm just focusing on the needs of my constituencies and the election, and then we'll see what happens after," he said. Hu'akavameiliku resigned from his leadership post in December last year, ahead of a no-confidence motion. That motion had been brought by Dr 'Aisake Eke, the man who eventually became prime minister. Dr Eke had made allegations about Hu'akavameiliku, but he has never elaborated or explained to the Tongan public what he was referring to. Hu'akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, right, and Crown Prince of Tonga Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalala in Nuku'alofa. August 2024 Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis Tonga's Legislative Assembly is sitting for the final time this week before members disperse and the November election timeline begins next week, Hu'akavameiliku said. "Right now we're trying to complete some of the agenda items, including legislations, annual reports and so forth," he said. He said for the last couple of weeks, MPs were busy visiting their constituency. "I think they're keen to actually table their reports, especially about what the needs of their constituency before the parliament closes." Hu'akavameiliku looks after the Tongatapu 3 constituency. He said common issues being raised include roads, street lights, security issues, drug, support for women's groups and support for sports development. All of these issues, he said, are "pretty common" across all constituencies.
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Education Minister David Seymour says NCEA changes will challenge students more
Associate Education Minister David Seymour. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Associate Education Minister David Seymour says changes to NCEA will challenge students more, which he believes can only be a positive thing. The government announced sweeping changes to school qualifications on Monday, including the end of the NCEA system that has been in place for more than 20 years. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement will be gone by 2030, replaced by a basic literacy and numeracy award at Year 11, and the Certificate of Education and Advanced Certificate of Education at Years 11 and 12. The new certificates would be standards-based, like the NCEA is, meaning every student passes if they demonstrate the required knowledge or skills, but they would have to study at least five complete subjects and pass four of them to get their certificate. Seymour said students wanted to be challenged more, and the overhaul to the NCEA system will provide that. "I was really interested to listen ... there were some students who seem to make a virtue of NCEA's easiness, as they saw it," he told First Up. "But there was a strong current running through those comments from the students. There was actually a desire for a bit more challenge. "One of the things that will happen is that by having a subject-based system, where there's a body of knowledge that you have to learn, where there's exams that are objectively assessed, I think that that extra challenge is going to be there. "I think for those students and for the country as a whole, that can only be a positive thing." Seymour said the only real predictor of where New Zealand's going to be in 30 years' time is the amount of knowledge that is passed from one generation to the next. He said there is an element of the European system in the changes. "There, they have more vocational pathways and I'm not saying that we're introducing a particular country system, but there's a hint of it. "That if you're somebody who wants to do something more practical, and I look at the prospects of people coming out of their studies, and I often joke, I wish I'd been smart enough to choose being an electrician over an electrical engineer, because it's those tradies that everyone's so short of." Seymour sympathised with educators having to adapt to a new policy change, to allow everyone impacted to catch up. But he is confident support will be on hand as they map out the overhaul. "I'm sure that as the implementation rolls out, that support will be at the forefront of the government's mind," he said. "But we haven't got to the point right now, we're just consulting on the shape of it. What I would say is that, because we are going back to something that is subject-based, I think some people might say it's a bit more prescriptive, then it's going to be clearer to educators, this is what the curriculum is. This is how it's assessed." Seymour said there will be less work do "creating bespoke pathways". "I think that's something generally, that after the New Zealand curriculum came out in 200 - since we've had a unit-based assessment for most of this century - it's actually been harder for teachers because we don't have, 'here's the body of knowledge, here's the assessment, go to it.' "We've had a lot more background work for educators to work out what the pathway actually is for each student, and I hope that this approach will be welcomed." Macleans College principal and ministerial advisory panellist Steve Hargreaves said the changes provided more clarity and he expected it to be implemented correctly. "I think this is going to be phased really well, we do have a pretty long lead in," he told Morning Report. "We're going to get the curriculum first and that's how it should be, so we learn what to teach and how to teach it before we start designing the assessments. "There is a lot going on in primary school, but from what I can hear from my colleagues there, those changes to structured literacy and numeracy are landing really well." Hargreaves said students will join high school better prepared, and that teachers he had spoken to were really positive about the changes. He also believed it would encourage students to extend their stay at secondary school. "This is a bit of a guess, but I think it might lift the de facto leaving age," he said. "Now, if there's this indication that, well, you've got Level 1 and that's some kind of a leaving certificate, then students might head out the door. "But now with the sort of the base level achievement occurs at Year 12, then I think we will see more students staying on." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
NCEA overhaul sparks optimism and concern
The opposition is concerned the "complete overhaul" goes too far. Photo: Getty Images Teachers' unions are cautiously optimistic changes to the country's secondary school qualifications framework will work, provided they are implemented and resourced well. But the opposition is concerned the "complete overhaul" goes too far. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford on Monday said NCEA Level 1 would be replaced with foundation literacy and numeracy tests. Levels 2 and 3 would be replaced with a New Zealand Certificate of Education and an Advanced Certificate. Students would be required to take five subjects and pass at least four to get each certificate. Marking would be out of 100, and grades range from A to E. Stanford said as a parent, she did not understand how NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) worked. "I thought that if you're sitting English, everyone's sitting the same English - but that's not the case… There is too much credit counting and bringing together of sometimes quite ad hoc standards because we moved to the standards-based assessment that are not setting students up for success." But the new system is not a return to the days of single three-hour exams measuring a students' learning for the year, nor will it be graded, forcing a certain percentage of students to fail. "I think it's really important to know that this is still standards-based assessment," Post Primary Teachers' Association president Chris Abercrombie told Nine to Noon . "So the real heart of NCEA, that standards base, is still there, which is really good to see because we know that helps students show their knowledge and understanding in various forms, so that's really good to see that that still exists… "Because it's all standards-based assessment… the 'bell curve' is not going to be put into the marking. So it's not gonna change that aspect fundamentally, which is really good." The new system is expected to be implemented one year at a time, so students will not be doing a mix of NCEA and and the new qualifications. Abercrombie said implementing it in a planned, robust and well-resourced way would be key to its success. "There's a significant concern about this because we know because of the poor implementation plan of Level 1, it did create a lot of stress on schools and teachers and principals to do that. "So, as I say, implementation is going to be absolutely key. We cannot repeat the mistakes made during the implementation of the new Level 1, and the co-requisites literacy and numeracy." Secondary Principals Association president Louise Anaru said the government must give teachers the training, resources and time they needed to introduce the overhaul. "The staging and sequencing of the changes are really important, and I can see that there is a timeline in place. Our schools will need to be resourced sufficiently, and they also need adequate time to implement all of the changes." Anaru said the overhaul retained the best parts of NCEA. Abercrombie noted that so far, principals had been consulted on the changes - but not teachers. "We need to make sure the sector really is listened to in this and so, hopefully the consultation period will allow that to happen." He also noted teachers "asked to do a lot of work for a 1 percent" pay increase, so "some more movement on the negotiation table" would be expected from the government. Consultation closes on 1 September. Students who will miss out on the new qualifications should not be worried, Abercrombie said. "[NCEA] will still be recognised at universities. We have students using their NCEA grads to attend universities all around the world. We've had 20 years of people being lawyers and doctors and builders and plumbers and nurses and everything in between, based on their NCEA results… "It's a very valid assessment, and they'll be able to reach their goals whatever they want to with that." Education Minister Erica Stanford and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announce changes to NCEA. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro Stanford agreed, saying her kids were doing NCEA - even her son, who had a choice between that and the alternative International Baccalaureate programme. "It is a good qualification. Children still get into universities around the world with this qualification. We can make it so much better. There is a lack of consistency, but my message to parents who are still going through NCEA like me, you can still rely on NCEA. It's a good qualification, but we need to look to the future and be more ambitious for our kids, and that's what I'm doing." Claire Amos, president of the Auckland Secondary Principals' Association and principal of Albany Senior High School, told Midday Report aside from replacing Level 1, the changes felt "a little bit like window dressing". She feared there would be a narrowing of the current 67 subjects schools could choose to offer. "It does look like it will be less flexible, with a focus on whole subjects rather than at present, we could actually put together a whole lot of achievement standards and unit standards to make up a total of 60 credits for students - and in some schools, that may not be just made up of four or five subjects." She said rather than being dismissed as a "patchwork" qualification, NCEA Levels 1 and 2 should be seen as a "diverse definitions of success". Amos was also concerned with the discussion document's mention of possibly raising the school leaving age from 16 to 17. "On paper, that sounds great. But if you've got young people who don't see themselves in the qualification framework that's on offer, we're actually going to be managing these disengaged learners." Opposition parties warned the overhauled risked throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver Labour education spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime said NCEA was not perfect, but changes must be based on evidence and proper sector consultation. "People are reading the consultation document and asking questions like, what will this mean for the subjects? What subjects are going to be offered? How will they be weighted? "There's those questions that are unanswered and families are looking for and needing certainty for their children. What we don't want to see is these rushed overhauls and a generation of children being used as guinea pigs for things that have failed in the past, like national standards ." Green Party education spokesperson Lawrence Xu-Nan said the proposals risked turning back the clock on decades of progress, with a return to a one-size-fits-alls rigid approach. "NCEA definitely has its strengths. It's a well-designed, inclusive and flexible qualification and it is an internationally recognised qualification. Chucking it all out isn't going to address the real problems, which are policy instability and under-resourcing of education." He said there was a lot of "engineered fear" that the NCEA system could be gamed. "By and large if you're talking to students and teachers, that doesn't happen as commonly as people think it does. There are areas of NCEA that need to be rejigged, but not to the extent of what we are seeing in the announcement today, which is a complete overhaul." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
