Morning peeps, seeing that Axiom have donated money to the...

Morning peeps, seeing that Axiom have donated money to the local hospital and sponsored the local football team, how about chipping in a few bucks to the local schools?
If we have a 50 year lease and will be there a few years atleast, to keep the locals happy, lets help a little with their future education, hey might get some good workers in the future??? The story below is on the front page of islandsun sb, IMO If we suppported the hospital, footy team and school that should cover it i think, and keep the natives happy for a long time and make national news :-)

Low literacy for Isabel

THE LONGEST Island in the country, Isabel is one of the provinces, which has the lowest literacy rate in the country. This finding was revealed in an Education and Literacy Survey Report, which was launched yesterday at the SIBC conference room in Honiara.

The report was done in 2010 in Renbel and Isabel province and was conducted by the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) and the Coalition for Education Solomon Islands (COESI).

The literacy assessment focused on each component skill of literacy such as reading, writing and numeracy, as well as the ability to apply these skills in familiar contexts in everyday life.

The report stated that 37% of people in Isabel are illiterate, and that only 17.5% of adults are literate.

This is substantially below the internationally reported literacy rate of 77% based on self-declaration, and is of particular concern given the fact that the test for literacy was not difficult.

It also stated that in Isabel Province, the highest literacy rate is amongst the 20 to 24 year old cohort.

The report found that 56.6% of youths in Isabel are semi literate and approximately one in four is non-literate.

This means that most youths in Isabel are able to read and write much better than the older people in their communities.

Compared to the same report which was also carried out in Renbel, the literate level in Renbel was way much higher than in Isabel with 33.9% of people being able to read and write while Isabel had only 17.5% of the population who were literate.

With regards to literacy classification by gender, Isabel Province had more women with 40.6% who were not able read and write than in Renbel with 24.5%.

In terms of the males, Isabel also had a higher percentage of men who were illiterate with 32.5% while Renbel had only 23.6% who can?t read or write.

In Isabel, the report also found that there were a higher percentage of 8.1% females who didn?t know how to read and write than males.

The report also found that of those who completed secondary school, in Renbel only 65.2% are literate, while in Isabel only 45.2% are literate.

This figures show that there is evidence of poor quality of primary and secondary education in the country and in particularly the two provinces concerned and also shows that the completion of secondary schooling does not necessarily assure literacy attainment for most locals.

The findings in the report classically highlights that Isabel Province has a lot of serious issues that needs a rethink of education policies by the policy makers of the province.

Education stakeholders and leaders of the province need to urgently take up the issue highlighted in the report and work together to ensure that Isabel?s literacy rates improves in the coming years.