ETHICAL leadership requires personal integrity and showing respect for others, a minister says.
Minister for Higher Education Research, Science and Technology Delilah Gore told University of PNG graduates last Friday to aspire to take up leadership roles in their profession. She suggested to them to plan their future on the motto: “Ethnical leadership for empowerment”. “Ethical leadership occurs when you display personal integrity,” she said. “It occurs when you show respect to others, even if your ideas differ. “Empowering and ethnical leadership motivates others to be as good as they can be. It encourages people to try hard, to innovate, and to keep on going. This is what we need to transform our country.” UPNG Vice-Chancellor Professor Albert Mellam said the foundation of their destiny should be “creative intelligence, not destructive intelligence”. Mellam said during a graduation ceremony last Friday graduates had been prepared to begin another journey in their lives and to contribute to humanity and national development. He said the journey should be creative intelligence with the skills they had acquired. “We have too many of the latter plaguing this country with schemes of destructive intelligence at work at every twist and turn in the development of PNG,” he said. Finance Minister James Marape agreed with Mellam saying graduates should be employers rather than employees. HIGHER education is the cornerstone of the skills needed for strong economies, according to Australian High Commissioner Deborah Stokes.
Stokes, speaking at the UPNG graduation last Friday, said a skilled workforce was vital to productivity and innovation which were central to a nation’s competitiveness and progress. She said PNG was benefitting from its vast natural resources but it would be its human resources that ultimately drive, shape and mobilise those benefits. “Just as importantly, higher education helps define our societies, our values and fundamental principles,” she said. “It is a central element of our democracies and the institutions based on the rule of law.” She told the graduates that their hard work, commitment, and desire to improve themselves “are the characteristics that all countries need”. “But as a highly educated person with a formal qualification, you now have more important responsibilities than ever before,” she said. “In PNG, to have a university degree, an achievement that is beyond the reach and imagination of most, is such a privilege. “It is a responsibility. You are leaders now and are essential to your country’s prosperity,” Stokes said. LAE Secondary School started their term one break early on April 8 due to a fight between members of the public and couple of students from other secondary schools in the city.
A student said they did not know why the fighting started last Friday at Eriku. “Lae Secondary finished classes at 1.40pm on Friday and were on their way out, the fight erupted and that destroyed a couple of mobile phone top up seller’s tables, as well as causing injuries to several students and the members of the public.” Fearing retaliation against the students, the students representative council (SRC) and a couple of senior students requested for early holiday to avoid any possible fights. “We are still afraid they might come attack us since our school is just a few metres to Eriku,” the students said THIS article explains the University of Papua New Guinea’s admission criteria.
SCHOOL leavers, their parents and others complain of not being admitted into the UPNG academic programmes they had applied for in 2013. It is the same for the bachelor of law degree programme. Most of these concerns are legitimate if they are based on the reason that, despite the applicant achieving the minimum grade point average (GPA) for admission into law or other academic programmes they had selected as their first choice on the school leaver form (SLF), they were not admitted. It is true that a high number of young citizens who had satisfied the minimum GPA requirement for admission into the programme of their choice were not admitted this year as it happens every year. The four schools affected by this concern include business administration (SBA), humanities and social sciences (SHSS), law, and natural and physical sciences (SNPS). Each degree programme offered by these schools has its own minimum GPA requirement for admission. The minimum GPA requirement for admission into law is 2.75 while GPA of 2.5 is required for programmes offered by the humanities and social sciences and business administration. It is 3.00 for all Science programmes. Applicants are required to meet the relevant minimum GPA, to be eligible for consideration for the degree for which they applied. Selection process The problem begins when selecting new enrolments from applicants who have met the relevant minimum GPA. The number of places available is limited in each programme of study so the question is simply who among these applicants should be given a place into the programme for that year? The school of law received 287 school leaver applications for the 2014 degree programme, of these; only 58 (representing 20%) were selected. This means that 229 applications were rejected. Of the 229 rejected applications, 90 applicants had met the minimum 2.75 GPA requirement for admission into the degree programme but were not selected. The remaining 50 fulltime places were allocated to non-school leaver applicants from an overwhelming 860 that applied for the 2014 degree programme. Thus, whether or not an eligible applicant is selected depends on two principal considerations:
Law had 50 places for school leavers in 2014. Fortunately, this was stretched to 58 this year. The number of places available is different for each school and programme. This is determined by considerations such as priorities set by the Government, number of scholarships available, and UPNG’s capacity to accommodate number of students selected. Selection of degree holders The school of law admits applicants with first degrees. The presence of mature candidates for the degree programme can only be good for all year cohorts for both the degree and diploma programmes. Priority is given to applicants who graduated earlier and have served the country for a number of years. Applications from persons with postgraduate qualifications are not considered. This is the most equitable way of allocating the limited number of spaces and at the same time acknowledges the first degree holders’ “service” to the nation. Institutional capacity The issue of capacity is important. It determines UPNG’s ability to continue to provide and maintain a high quality of tertiary education. Quality, in turn, is affected by staff/students ratios, seating space in lecture and tutorial venues, availability of facilities to assist students take charge of their own learning such as computers, access to internet, library space, availability of books and other reading materials in the library. The students’ learning process is retarded when UPNG lacks capacity – no chemicals and equipment for science practicals, no working computers in laboratories, students leaning against walls or sitting on the floors of lecture/tutorial venues to take notes or are taking them from outside the rooms. This shows that UPNG lacks the capacity to offer an environment that is conducive to learning. This must be avoided. This downside requires UPNG to manage the two equally important but competing interests involved – the interest of all eligible students to a university education, and UPNG’s academic and physical capacity to provide the right environment in the best possible, equitable, and academically most defendable way. It does this by selecting only the number of applicants it has the capacity to academically and physically accommodate. It seeks to do this by selecting only those who achieve the highest GPA in descending order. Therefore, if the available places are taken up by those with higher GPAs, all others who had scored the minimum required GPAs but lower than the GPA of the applicant who was allocated the last available space will be denied a place. For example, if the 50th place in the law degree programme was taken up by the applicant who scored a GPA of 3.4, all others who obtained GPA of between 2.75 (minimum GPA) and 3.25 will not be admitted. This is what happened in the 2014 Law degree selection process. Satisfying the minimum GPA requirement does not guarantee admission. It only qualifies an applicant to be considered for one
FINANCE Minister James Marape and wife Rachael had two reasons to celebrate last Friday – both graduated with their respective degrees from the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG).
Marape received a masters degree from the School of Business Administration. His wife graduated with a degree in business administration. They were among more than 60 who graduated in medicine, business and science. William Kaptigau received a doctorate. Vice-Chancellor Prof Albert Mellam said it was the first time for UPNG to graduate someone serving as a Cabinet minister. Marape thanked the university for the opportunity to complete his masters. “The first time I wore my wig, I was only a boy from Tari. “Now I am wearing a wig as a chief from Tari,” he said. “And that is a classic statement of how the UPNG continues to shape a girl into a woman, a boy into a man and for the last 58 graduation ceremonies, many women and men have been produced to the cause of developing this country.” EVERY student from Southern Highlands studying at universities will be included in a provincial human capital investment data, according to Governor William Powi.
“We are trying to consolidate our statistics of human capital capacity to weigh our strengths to build more on and make Southern Highlands develop. It is through education that the province will develop,” he said. Powi paid the University of Goroka on Wednesday tuition fees for 160 Southern Highlands students there. He briefed the students on what his plans for the province regarding human resource development. Powi said the provincial government wanted to keep track of the progress of every student every year. “We would like monitor how many students are graduating this year and in what discipline and how many are doing first, second, third and fourth years,” he said. “With the necessary information, we will be in a better position to allocate money to support them and create employment opportunities for them.” The provincial government had allocated K2 million to assist students in tertiary institutions this year. Southern Highlands Students Association president Presley Ipe thanked Powi and the province for the assistance. He welcomed the initiative to establish partnership with the universities and recruit the best students from Southern Highlands to work in their province. “The new approach you embark on will help in a big way to help Southern Highlands grow,” he said. THE University of Papua New Guinea will confer one doctorate and 61 Master degrees in medicine, business and sciences today.
The School of Medicine and Health Sciences will confer a Doctor of Medicine and 26 Master degrees in medicine and pharmacy. The School of Business Administration will confer 33 candidates at Master level – 32 Master in Business Administration degrees and one Master in Strategic Management. The School of Natural and Physical Sciences will confer a single Master of Science degree. They will be part of the 1,330 graduates to be conferred degrees and diplomas in two separate graduation ceremonies at the UPNG Drill Hall. Three hundred-and-seven students will graduate from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences and 417 from the School of Business Administration. The others include the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (272), School of Natural and Physical Sciences (216) and School of Law (118). The morning session of the graduation will involve the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Business Administration. Australian High Commissioner Deborah Stokes will be the guest at the morning session. Finance Minister James Marape (an MBA graduate) will respond on behalf of the students. The afternoon session will involve the Schools of Law, Medicine and Science and Natural and Physical Science. Minister for Higher Education, Research and Science and Technology, Delilah Gore will be the guest speaker. Bachelor of Science graduate Samuel Mori will respond for the students. A member of the Parliamentary Referral Committee on Education (PRCE) investigating teachers’ salary discrepancies and grievances has suggested a re-structure of the education system.
The idea came from Eastern Highlands Governor Julie Soso during the committee’s last inquiry of a series – with the Papua New Guinea Teachers’ Association (PNGTA), Teaching Services Commission (TSC) and the Education Deptment in the National Capital District yesterday. The inquiry allowed the committee to meet with the three bodies that deal with teacher issues. “After visiting the provinces and listening to the teachers, I believe we should look at overhauling the education system,” Soso said. She said the country’s population had increased and the education system needed to adapt to the increase and the social changes taking place. “When we talk about the education sector and the development of the social sector where education comes, what we have been using have been structured for the past 10 to 20 years. “We are now into the new millennium and should update our system.” Soso said she believed the system was a factor to the teachers’ issues. “The system and the structure in place now in our education system are not meeting the demand and the quality in the education that we need,” she said. She added with the PRCE in place, it was a time to use it for a way forward for the education system. Soso said it was up to the government to look at ways for a better solution like improving the information technology. The PRCE committee will present its recommendations in parliament West New Britain students at the University of Goroka received a cheque for K380,000 for their tuition fees yesterday. Governor Sasindran Muthuvel was traditionally welcomed by the university’s student association to present the cheque and sign on the Phoenix early childhood education training course which the students are enrolled on. The money is the first installment for the trainee teachers.
“It was an overwhelming welcome by our students with a long procession in traditional attire. Thank you my dear students and teachers,” Mr Muthuvel said. He was accompanied by West New Britain provincial administrator Williamson Hosea and chairman for education and president for Talasea, Victor Narere with the tertiary education scholarship assistance scheme (TESAS) team for the presentation. He said he was impressed by his first visit to Goroka and the university. Mr Muthuvel revealed that the 2014 TESAS funding totals up to K1.58 million for various universities and tertiary institutions and there is a remaining K950,000 yet to be paid for various other institutions within West New Britain, around PNG and abroad. He said he does not have any direct role in terms of awarding TESAS scholarships and that it is purely managed by a committee chaired by Mr Hosea. “I do not have any political involvement in the selection process and students are selected purely on merit basis as the committee has their own selection criteria they abide by,” the governor said. He said it has come to his knowledge that the current allocation of K2.5 million is not enough to cater for all students in the province and made a commitment increase TESAS ceiling in years to come. “I will try my level best to see how well we can increase this and support our students who want to attend university,” he said. He appealed to the recipients of the scholarship to perform to the best of their ability as knowledge is imperishable. THE Mondanda Community now has a double primary school classroom.
Located an hour outside of Mendi, the Mondanda Primary School is the first primary school in the Ialibu-Pangia district to benefit from Digicel Foundation’s education infrastructure support programme. The double classroom was built at a cost of K240,000 and comes with a 9,000 litre water tank, two ventilation improved piping (VIP) toilets and shower, a solar system and 20 desks. There to witness the launch were the head of Digicel Foundations visiting from Dublin, Ireland, Maria Mulcahy. Chairman, Laki Yoko said the school was grateful for the wonderful new double classroom that will provide for its growing number of students from three large neighbouring villages, all within an hour’s walking distance from the school. Digicel PNG Foundation CEO, Beatrice Mahuru said the foundation believed strongly in empowering communities in the country by recognising positive efforts to promote positive change. “I am indeed humbled by the welcome that the Mondanda community has put out to welcome Digicel PNG Foundation,” Mahuru said. “The flower beds that you have built around our classroom investment are evident of your pride to add to an environment that is conducive to learning.” |
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