Papua New Guinea Deputy Prime Minister Charles Abel has asked Australia to provide up to 1000 places a year for PNG students in schools to lift the standard of education in the country. Mr Abel said: “The development assistance from Australia to PNG should have education as its primary focus, and this should partially comprise in the shorter term by providing 500 to 1000 places a year for the higher achievers from grade 9 into Australian boarding schools. “There should be a large program placing Australian lecturers in our universities and teachers in our schools and vice versa.” Mr Abel, the Treasury Minister, said this when he delivered a keynote address to a full house at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, last week. He spoke about the need to ramp up the people-to-people engagement between Australia and PNG and the need for traditional partners of PNG like Australia and the US to review their approaches particularly given the growing importance of the Asia Pacific and China in the region. Mr Abel said especially in terms of education, trade and travel there needed to be much more done in terms of integration between the two countries. “I’ve had an opportunity to travel to the United States, Asia and Israel recently. “One thing which continues to strike me as I compare countries is that we have one of the best education systems in the world on our doorstep in Australia. “Of course PNG needs to build its own international standard education system but as an accelerator to that I really believe we need to integrate our education system more with the Australian system to take better advantage of it.” Mr Abel said another significant and related accelerator in terms of global integration and access to knowledge and education is a modern ICT infrastructure network. “The new 20 terabyte cable from Sydney to Port Moresby and the domestic submarine cable and terrestrial fibre optic network are critical. “Access to cheap, speedy internet, means access to knowledge and education, its a no brainer. Cheap and accessible electricity and internet at village level is transformative.” Mr Abel said it was part of the 25-point plan and the procurement of the international cable is underway, again with the help of Australia. Mr Abel’s address was well received and stimulated a lively question time, in which participants expressed concern that the real relationship between Australia and PNG was waning and surviving on decades of old history and personal experiences of the now, very aged Australians who worked in PNG many years ago. Post Courier/Press Release
1 Comment
6/27/2018 05:26:19 pm
Well said Mr Abel. I am one of the very aged Australians who worked in PNG for many years. I am still trying to sell textbooks to PNG that I wrote with PNG partners.
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