PAGADIAN CITY, Zamboanga del Sur – Public school system in New Zealand is so advanced in terms of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that even pupils in rural preschools are already each provided with laptop by the government.

This is one of the significant observations noted by several Southern Philippine field school executives, including Western Mindanao Education Regional Director Walter O. Albos, who were invited recently for a week-long tour in that country.

Albos noted that New Zealand elementary and secondary schools are each governed by a local Board of Trustees which implements the state’s educational programs and projects from preschool to Level 1 (elementary) and Level 2 (secondary).

Public education in the country, where cattle and sheeps outnumber the people, is strictly free and compulsory, Albos said, adding that the government does not collect from students any form of miscellaneous fees such as those – in the Philippines – for Red Cross, Boy and Girl Scouts, Parent- Teachers Association (PTA), Anti-TB, and the like.

According to Albos, local parents who don’t send their children to school are penalized by the state even as school dropout is unheard of in that island nation which has virtually zero crime rate.

He claimed that unlike in the Philippines where students are packed like sardines in classrooms, a New Zealand regular classroom consist only about 15 children who perform most of class activities with the teacher’s function focused only on room management and supervision.

Instruction, Albos added, is very informal with every classroom having a heavily socialized atmosphere where children freely sit or squat on the floor with the room surrounded with colorful instructional devices and enough reading materials.