By Giff Johnson
For Variety

MAJURO — National student test scores in the Marshall Islands are abysmal, but the top public school administrator in the country said Friday that “the most important question is not where test scores are now, but where they are going.”
Last year’s Marshall Islands Standard Achievement Test results, released this week by the Ministry, show that the best average school test score was an “F” (60 of 100) in math, a “C” (78 of 100) in English, and “B” (83 of 100) in Marshallese — for third, sixth and eighth grades with at least three students. These test scores, though poor, improved slightly over 2005.
“It’s no secret that education in the Marshall Islands was neglected for many years,” said Education Secretary Biram Stege. “In many ways, we’re seeing the results of that neglect now.”
For many years, Marshall Islands test scores have been among the lowest in the Pacific island region.
“It’s fine to say that results are bad, but the real question is, ‘where are the results going?’” she said. “The first year of this new test was 2005. Almost all of the results improved in 2006, and we’re hoping for the same in 2007.” Tests for this year are currently being conducted throughout the country.
To fix the problem, the government for the past three years has devoted more than 25 percent of its national budget to education.
The poor public school education shows in the dismal entrance test results of students heading for the College of the Marshall Islands, a Majuro two-year institution. Fewer than five percent of those taking the test score high enough to be eligible to take credit courses, forcing the college to devote a disproportionate number of teachers and resources for “developmental” level studies to bring entering freshmen up to a college level.
National planner Carl Hacker said the lack of achievement in most public schools is a huge problem for national development. “For future development progress we have to look at the people,” he said. “We can’t talk about development if most high school students graduate with a fourth grade level and only five percent of graduates are able to do legitimate college-level courses.”
Stege said the key is improvements in the early grades, which the government is now focused on.
“We can’t fix the problems at the end of the system — like the low number of students who can pass the College of the Marshall Islands entrance test — by focusing reforms on 12th grade,” she said. “We have to start reforms from the very beginning.”
Stege called on communities, parents and public schools to be most concerned with a school’s third grade performance. “If students at a school are falling behind early, it is virtually impossible to catch up,” she said.
“We need to make sure that our youngest students are learning everything they need so that they have a strong foundation for future learning.”
High truancy and a lack of qualified teachers and administrators are among the problems. Government officials estimate that at least 10 percent of school age elementary students are not registered for school, and a study at one of the country’s largest public schools last year showed that 25 percent of the registered students were absent every day. Meanwhile, a majority of teachers are only high school graduates with little classroom training.
There is no single solution to fixing the current situation of low achievement in Marshall Islands schools, Stege said.
She is hopeful, however, that a combination of “universal kindergarten, improved text books, continued teacher training on the curriculum, getting more teachers to get their degrees, and other efforts should lead to greater improvement, and it should start to show first in the younger grades.”