Tonga's Ministry of Education yesterday, February 22 signed a 3-years contract with UniQuest Pty Ltd. of the University of Queensland to develop a new school curriculum for Tonga.

The signing ceremony took place at the Janful International Dateline Hotel, where Tonga's Minister of Education Hon Dr Tevita Palefau signed for the Tonga government and Mr Harleigh Luscombe for UniQuest Pty Ltd.

Hon Dr Tevita Palefau told the gathering that it took his ministry 10 months to go through the selection process and finally concluded that UniQuest would provide what Tonga was looking for, "and today marks the beginning of the Ministry's vision to develop an appropriate curriculum for the schools in Tonga."

A Press Statement from the Ministry of Education said that the Curriculum Reform Program is a milestone for Tonga's Education "because it marks an attempt to form a curriculum framework that is overarching from Class 1 to Form 7 and is uniquely Tongan. It should incorporate two significant components, Early Childhood, Education (ECE) and Inclusive Education (IE) that has been lacking in Tonga's curriculum thus far.

"The intended outcome of this curriculum reform will be a curriculum, that is multifaceted and no longer purely academic based but will integrate new components such as design and technology, and life skills."

The Curriculum Reform Program for Tonga, a component of the Tonga Education Support Programme (TESP), will be carried out by a team of six technical advisors who are specialists on teaching and learning materials, curriculum development support, literacy and policy. The team is headed by Dr Antony Austin who is the new Curriculum Reform Advisor at the Curriculum Development Unit of the Ministry of Education.

Mr Harleigh Luscombe said that the overall objective of the project is to create a curriculum framework that embodies what the Tongan people's beliefs are, "what the Tongan youths require in order to be active and productive members of their local communities with the capacity to contribute to the national development in a global economy.

"The framework will be used as the basis of what will be taught in schools and how it will be taught, and the reform curriculum that results from this process is expected to be equally applicable to Government and non Government schools and one of the first tasks of the team leader will be to produce a report which will be the road map for the remainder of the three year project."

The Tonga Education Support programme (TESP) is a US$14 million project funded by New Zealand and the World Bank.