Kofi Assan
Ladies and Gentlemen it is my pleasure to welcome you as we are about to mark the 40th Anniversary of our mother land Papua New Guinea. 40 years in the life maybe a short time but the first few years are significant as it is during these formative years that the nation’s culture and standards are established.
I am happy to note that in the past 40 years Papua New Guinea has moved towards a culture of what seems to be of understandable discipline, despite the one or two bad impressions made.
As we are about to celebrate, we must place on record our appreciation for the strong foundation that the founding fathers bequeathed to us and as we do so, all of us must renew our commitment to build on the legacy.
In our celebratory mood the times we live in demand that we reflect in the attributes that marks the nations greatness; Education in the overall context of the challenges of our national development. Today Papua New Guinea’s education sector faces many challenges which represent a microcosm of the challenges that PNG faces after 40 years of independence , I dare say the resolution of these challenges are inextricably linked.
At independence the population of the country was quite small, 40 years along the line the population has more then quadrupled and as we all know our infrastructure and services have not kept pace with the growth of the population.
40 years ago the few schools established opened with less then a hundred students, I am told now we have more then 3000 student in certain High schools. I am confidently sure that the infrastructure and service have also not kept pace with the explosion in numbers.
Life for grassroots in those days of schooling was in a world which had no machines, computers, no fax machines, no mobile phones, and certainly no internet. I was lucky I went to school at Ela Beach International School so I better side of education, but spent most of my time wondering, so I got a chance of experiencing a few stuff. The most useful companion for science and math’s students at Koki Community school were log books and side rules, that was so for counterparts all over the world , so upon graduation you could compete favorably with any student.
That time has changed beyond recognition. It is now a global village. All standards are global thus local standards simply will not meet today s needs the competition for any resources are global and everything we do is measured on a global barometer.
The world New Guinea joined at independence is totally different world now, the measures for competitiveness of education, and health and infrastructure are all denominated by global standards. The level of inter connectivity between nations, industries and workforces is higher then it’s ever been. Our land now competes with other pacific islands and with the world for jobs, markets and investments funds.
We must temper our celebration with the realization that for several and sore reasons we have not made much progress as we should have as the nation which burst on the stage of the Pacific, burning with confidence and promise.
If you ask me the most pressing issues of the day? It JOBS, JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! As a starting point the structure or economy has to undergo radical transformation, you can hardly make progress with an economy characterized by the predominance of trading on commercial imports and exports with very little domestic trade production; it is like a structure built on dependency rather then self reliance. We can not afford to make a slow pace in development, I say now is the time, start thinking to make a change for a Better PNG ,
Our young people need skills for the job market. We need apprenticeship schemes that teach skills and guarantee quality. We will borrow from the experiences of countries that have industrialised with the skills of artisans. On a recent trip to Germany,
I explored the possibilities of collaboration so that we can bring home the apprenticeship models, which have helped Germany make quality products that are famed around the world.
Happy Independence Day to All.
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