New Zealand help rebuild Solomon Islands’ education system.

NEW Zealand’s focus in the Solomon Islands is basic education, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said. Speaking in New Zealand on Saturday, Mr Peters said: “NZAID’s single biggest bilateral programme is in Solomon Islands, where we have made a 10-year commitment to help the Solomon Islands Ministry of Education get basic education back on its feet. We are the lead donor, but not the only country interested in helping rebuild the Solomon’s’ education system,” Mr Peters said.

However, he said, instead of other donors picking up projects here and there, they have forged a coordinated approach that funds projects across the whole education sector - classrooms, trained teachers, a national curriculum, classroom resources, and so on.
Already we are seeing results through significant improvements in attendance at schools, a greater availability of trained teachers, and more teaching materials in classroom,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Peters said poverty is now visible in the Pacific.

Poverty leads to conflict and instability, and it can place severe pressure on the environment, as people strip the land and waters around them in their struggle to feed themselves or make a living,” he said.

Unfortunately these manifestations of poverty are visible in the Pacific - our neighborhood.
Poverty can be seen in the squatter settlements in Fiji; the lack of opportunities in small remote islands, and the grim educational and health statistics in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.