Get to know » Schools & their leaders » Are there any barriers to quality teaching?:
Resource constraints
Resources in the PILNA context refer to the infrastructure, teaching materials and teachers available to a school.
School leaders were asked to indicate the extent to which their schools were affected by resource challenges. They could respond with ‘To a large extent’, ‘To a moderate extent’, ‘To a small extent’, or ‘Not at all’. Questions related to both the quantity and quality of resources available to their school.
Students attending schools with resource constraints
Table SLT3.1 below shows the percentage of students from PILNA 2021 who had a school leader indicate that their school was experiencing resource constraint ‘To a large extent’ or ‘To a moderate extent’. Note that responses indicating ‘to a small extent’ and ‘not at all’ were left out.
Eight out of ten students in Papua New Guinea (81%) attended schools where school leaders reported a resource shortage as a common factor hindering the school’s capacity to provide instruction. This finding is supported by the teacher questionnaire, where teachers also reported limited access to literacy and numeracy textbooks in their classrooms.
Half the students attended schools where school leaders reported shortages of classrooms and inadequate classrooms in their schools.
Approximately three out of ten students attended schools where school leaders reported instruction being hindered by a shortage of teachers (27%), and a lack of qualified teachers (32%). Teacher absenteeism was also a key concern, with two thirds of students having school leaders who reported absenteeism as a key issue.
For the PILNA countries, there was substantial variation in school leaders’ reports of teacher shortages and absenteeism. This ranged from 0% in some countries to 100% in others. Similarly, the proportion attending schools with a lack of qualified teachers ranged from 0% in some countries to 85% in others.
What does this mean?
Together, these finding show a theme of insufficient or inadequate resourcing in a substantial number of schools. This is consistent across infrastructure, instruction materials, and teacher availability. There were also significant variations across countries, which indicates a need for tailored interventions that take into account local circumstances in the Pacific region.
For Papua New Guinea, far more students had school leaders who reported shortage or inadequacy of instructional materials (81%) and teacher absenteeism (64%) as key concerns when compared to the regional results (instructional materials: 53%; absenteeism: 64%). These are key areas that Papua New Guinea may wish to focus on.
