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Student difficulties
Proportions of students experiencing challenges
Table STT1.9 lists the challenges to student learning measured by the questionnaire. This table also shows the proportions of grade five and grade seven students who reported these as either ‘A lot of difficulty’ or ‘I cannot do this at all’. This allows us to identify the proportion of students on whom these factors posed a severe burden.
Overall, the distribution of students reporting at least ‘A lot of difficulty’ was between 6% and 28%.
The most frequently reported difficulty was ‘Learning or remembering things’ (grade five, 26%; grade seven, 20%). This was followed by ‘Controlling your behaviour’ (grade five, 28%; grade seven, 17%) and ‘Concentrating and focusing your attention’ (grade five, 16%; grade seven, 18%). The least reported difficulties were ‘Seeing, even if wearing glasses’ (grade five, 6%; grade seven, 8%) and ‘Walking or climbing steps’ (grade five, 9%; grade seven, 5%).
What does this mean?
A large proportion of students in Palau are experiencing quite severe behavioural and cognitive challenges related to learning and school environments in general. About one out of five students across both grade five and seven are finding it difficult to concentrate and, relatedly, finding it difficult to control their behaviour. Similar proportions are also having difficulty learning or remembering. Smaller proportions of students are experiencing difficulties with sensory or physical tasks. These findings can inform learning support activities in Palau.
