American Educator's Praise

Education in Papua and New Guinea was advancing swiftly “through leadership earning the highest respect,” the Director of Education of the US Pacific Trust Territory, Dr. E. Gibson, said in Port Moresby in November.

Dr. Gibson left the Territory after visiting more than 40 Admin istration and mission schools in various parts of the Territory during a ten-day visit.

“I have been greatly impressed by the attention givdn to lesson preparation by native teachers and by the excellent English of native pupils in elementary schools,” he said.

He would take back several ideas to his own Territory which he had gained from his Territory tour.

“We have much to learn from Papua and New Guinea’s methods of training native teachers and we may well decide to introduce train ing along your lines,” Dr. Gibson said.

The Papua and New Guinea Administration faced “tremendous difficulties” in educating native people speaking about 500 different languages and dialects.

“We do not face anything like the difficulties encountered here and we make our students literate in their own languages before teach -1719 i^^N^w^Guinea, of course, English as the lingua franca is essential for education and the proficient English of many of the young students in schools I visited amazed me, Dr. Gibson said.