According to the 2002 census, about 90% of children were enrolled in early childhood education programmes while the net enrolment rate at primary level was 100% (no gender disparities noted). With the new requirement for entrance examination to secondary school there is an emerging problem of filtering students and pushing them out of the education system. At secondary level, the net enrolment rate was approximately 63% and the enrolment rates in year 11 and 12 were only about 30%. This trend is more prominent amongst boys; while at the same time, the completion of secondary school is proportionally higher among boys (37.8%) than girls (33%) (UNESCO 2008).
According to the 2002 census, 9.4% of males and over 7% of females had continued on to complete tertiary qualifications, which can be linked to the availability of the Maritime Training Institute providing the opportunity for boys to access further tertiary studies (UNESCO 2008).
Since most preschools are privately operated, there has been little coordination and standardization of an official curriculum and preschool teachers currently devise their own curricula and programmes of activities. In addition, there are only a few qualified teachers in ECCE and it appears that many of those who do obtain formal certification move into the primary education system (UNICEF 2001).
Moreover, general education in Tuvalu has seen a quality decline which may be attributed to poor teaching, unsuitable curriculum, poorly designed examinations, insufficiently defined learning objectives and inadequate learning resources. The curriculum is mainly borrowed from the Fijian Junior Certificate Programme and the regional syllabus prepared by the South Pacific Board for Education Assessment, but it is not sufficiently adapted to the specific needs of Tuvaluan children (ADB 2004a).
Finally, different development partners have acknowledged areas in need of development within the higher education and TVET sub-sectors. There are needs to establish a national training council and a National TVET Policy to guide development of the sector and TVET curriculum and trainer programme with the aim to meet the needs of the outer islands (UNESCO 2008).
Financing of education in Tuvalu is costly due to the diseconomies of scale and the dispersed population and the government is allocating nearly one quarter of its budget to the education system. Management of financial resources is centralized, however the management capacity of the Department of Education is limited and is already stretched just to deal with routine system management (ADB 2004b). In the past, some of the donor assistance has resulted in duplication of projects and investment in non-priority areas. However, with the Education and Training Sector Master Plan 2004 there is consorted effort to better coordinate donor assistance. This is to be done through improving the capacity of the Department of Education to better manage and utilize funds in order to ensure targeted donor assistance (UNESCO 2008).
The Government is committed to achieving Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals relating to education, with the Tuvalu Department of Education Strategic Plan 2006-2010 providing a step in the right direction. The Government has already reached a number of these goals; however, it recently established a board of inquiry to examine the causes of the recent poor performance of the education sector. In 2004, the Government completed a review of the education sector and formulated the Education and Training Sector Master Plan to strategically address sector issues (ADB 2004a).
