THE top education leaders in the Pacific, including the CNMI, gathered on July 12 in Hawaii for the annual Pacific Resources for Education and Learning Advisory Board meeting.
The annual meeting discussed updates and feedback on ongoing initiatives that support educational needs in the Pacific.
“This meeting is certainly an eye-opener for me and the CNMI Public School System,” Commissioner of Education Dr. Alfred B. Ada told Variety.
“Pacific school systems have similar issues but different in some ways,” he added.
The meeting was for the Region 18 Comprehensive Center or R18CC and the Region 19 Comprehensive Center or R19CC. R18CC serves Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia. R19CC serves American Samoa, Hawaii and the Republic of the Marshal Islands.
Both centers are led by the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning or PREL, a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization based in Honolulu, Hawaii.
‘Common issues’
Ada said there are many common issues that Pacific school systems are facing.
He said these include “social-emotional learning, learning losses, distance education, management, migration and identities,” among other issues.
“A key takeaway for me was when Palau Community College President Dr. Patrick Tellei stated that ‘we are Pacific Islanders with so much talent and intelligence…. We can solve these challenging issues ourselves. We will generate our own teaching and learning data and we should be able to identify root causes.’ I agree,” Ada said. “As Pacific Islanders-Micronesians, we know how to survive turbulent times.”
During the meeting, Marshall Islands educator and former president, Dr. Hilda Heine, noted that “western culture has influenced our students lifestyle due to migration of students. We need to step back and analyze what’s happening — western education and the impact on culture. We graduate students, they leave the islands but they don’t come back.”
Indigenous-based education
Ada, for his part, said he shared the CNMI PSS’s implementation of an “indigenous-based education” initiative called Project Based Teaching/Learning.
He said the initiative aims to promote Marianas culture and traditional knowledge, including island-life survival skills.
Ada also talked about how oral history is helping preserve local culture by learning from the elderly. “Our history is being passed on through effective story-telling,” he said.
Ada said he was assured that PREL will continue to assist PSS with “research-based technical assistance” pertaining to management, career pathways, data accountability, continuity of practice and indigenous-based education.
From left, CNMI Commissioner of Education Dr. Alfred B. Ada, Director of PREL’s Region 18 Comprehensive Center Dr. Emerson Odango, and Palau Community College President Dr. Patrick Tellei pose for a photo during a break from a Pacific education meeting on July 12 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The recent annual meeting of Pacific education chiefs in Hawaii evaluated the progress of several initiatives that aim to improve student learning in the region.
Education chiefs from the Pacific, including the CNMI’s Commissioner of Education Dr. Alfred B. Ada, left, pose for a photo with education specialists and researchers from the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning during a meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Part of the regional education officials’ ongoing work is evaluating how their school districts can improve further.
