Education & security winners in PNG budget
18 November 2010
BY KEITH JACKSON
PNG’s TREASURER and Finance Minister, Peter O’Neill, has handed down a record K9.3 billion budget for 2011 with the theme “building the foundations for economic growth and prosperity”.
The budget’s highlight was certainly a forecast of strong economic growth through 2011, although cost inflation is clearly worrying the government.
There will be no new taxes; except a tax on locally-brewed liquor (or homebrew), which seems bound to trigger collection problems.
With an election coming up in 2012, public servants’ wages are to be hiked and more funds are promised to high priority development areas like education – which ahs been labelled “the biggest winner”.
The education appropriation represents 14 percent of the budget, with universal access to quality primary and secondary education being targeted for expenditure of nearly a billion kina.
K30 million has been earmarked for curriculum development (it will be interesting to see if OBE survives) and K20 million is available for school for equipment.
The provinces will receive additional funding for 4,000 teachers to bring teacher numbers to 41,400. And while the basic education grant is up by nearly 20 percent, it’s not going to make much impression on the needs of a decaying school system.
In the higher and technical education sector, the government is focused on addressing the skilled workforce shortages as LNG and other resource projects swing into action. It’s allocating 170 million kina to get training operating at the same speed as resource development.
The budget also noted that the Chinese government will allocate K59 million to the University of Goroka.
Another key sector for funding is security – with big boosts for police, correctional services and the Defence Force (up more than 25 percent), including K1 million for a Beijing defence attaché.
On a sour note, the budget also revealed that this year K700 million has been raided from public trust accounts with no explanation of how the money has been used or where it went. This compared with the K2.4 billion that disappeared in 2009.
The global accountancy firm, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, expressed "serious concern" at the lack of transparency and the continued haemorrhaging in the government's use of trust funds.
While Deloitte noted the significant reduction this year from the "spectacular" amount in 2009, Deloitte says the issue is not going to go away.
Spotter: Reginald Renagi
The Post-Courier has just announced that the national government will establish a special scholarship for the best Grade 12 leavers to attend the finest universities in the world by 2013.
The top Grade 12 students will be selected from seven secondary schools which the Education Department has identified as schools of excellence: Kerevat, Passam, Sogeri and Aiyura national high schools, and Wawin, Port Moresby and Kabiufa secondary schools.
The program, which the Minister said was his baby project, starts this year with the best Grade 10 students from around the country absorbed into these seven schools and, by 2013, the best of this year’s Grade 10s - who then will be in Grade 12 - will pioneer the special scholarship program by attending the top universities in the world.
Education Minister James Marape said those students will do specialist studies in specific fields and, upon their completion, will return and work for the PNG government.
The whole scheme aims to collect all the best brains in the country and provide them with the best training in the world, with the aim of equipping the country with knowledge and skills that will compete with any country.
“While the national government, through the Education Department, is committed to human development, all stakeholders should unite and work collectively to ensure that we achieve maximum goals,” Mr Marape said.
While referring to the rundown conditions of the four traditional national high schools in the country, the Minister said he met their principals in June and promised funds for infrastructure redevelopment.
He said: “We have secured K10 million each for the four traditional National High Schools (Aiyura, Sogeri, Passam, Kerevat) in next year’s budget. We’ll look at the other three schools in the 2012 budget.
"There is no reason why staff and administrators in schools should complain about run down facilities etc.”
He said funding was secured through a special intervention to redevelop infrastructure to accommodate the best Grade 10 students.
Ex-Keravat teachers and students hope that the men and women who run the Education Department will rise to the challenge.
The Minister needs to be thanked for honouring his promise of 2009. But he also needs to realise that the process of turning the old National High Schools into Schools of Excellence will not be easy and will take time and a lot of thought.
Time must be allowed for the necessary renovations of these old high schools. Checks need to be put in place so money does not disappear as in the previous attempt to renovate Keravat.
Much thought needs to go into an appropriate syllabus for these Grade 11 and 12 students. After recent problems with Grade 10 exam results, thought must be given to how gifted and talented students can be helped gain the necessary topics which they may have not covered under the present Grade 10 syllabus.
It may be necessary for these students to do three years at the National High Schools to bring them to a level where they will be accepted at overseas universities.
It may be necessary to work with other countries. For example, if the graduates wish to enter NSW universities, students may need to sit for the NSW Higher School Certificate exams and so their syllabi need to be appropriate.
Staffing considerations are many and will also take time. Special staff will need to be chosen who are capable of handling these advanced courses. Staff need time to work together on working out how these schools will be run.
Various things have to be worked out. For example - work parades, school cleaning and maintenance, the running of school sport and extra activities, the running of boarding schools duties, the appropriate school rules, the way staff meetings should be run.
It is important that teachers coming to teach at these special schools realize that they should also be involved in extra-curricular activities as so many of the students will be boarders and far from their home.
These extra-curricular activities need to help in leadership training and occupy the students' spare time so they are not tempted to get involved with cults, make home brew etc, as has been the case in the past.
Problems have developed in the old National High Schools after the academic standards of the in-coming students were greatly lowered. A fresh start needs to be made with these new gifted and talented students and suitable staff need to be found and trained.
I congratulate James Marape and I hope that he will check that the Education Department has the time and personnel to put in place all the necessary preparations so that these changes to the old National High Schools will bring them back to the very high standards that they reached in former years.
It is a pity that he thinks they need to go to overseas universities. Hopefully, one day the PNG universities will be helped to solve all their many problems and the National High School top graduates can once again move on to PNG universities and other colleges of advanced education.
Posted by: Barbara Short | 19 November 2010 at 09:16 AM