THE PLACE OF COCONUTS IN A CHANGING PNG

By JOHN FOWKE

 

At the risk of  angering those who have already indicated that this mild-mannered old masta  is in fact a patronising colonial relic  of the sort PNG is well rid of, I want to raise the following points.

Very few modern enterprises or services of any sort in PNG work well unless managed by a  PNG’ian professional who has had overseas experience at a high level and the degree of social separation conferred by a few years of hands-on management in a different cultural, intellectual and social environment.  

Once established as a world-citizen and a peer among equals in an industry or a profession across the globe, few of such PNG’ians, and there are increasingly-large numbers, are willing to return to live and work in what they  perceive as a messy, corrupt and crime-burdened environment with opportunities only for risk-takers. This means that the nation misses out on the benefit of the services and input of  a  large segment of its most-talented and best-educated sons and daughters.

It was with such a premonition in mind, I believe, that the two early elite National High Schools at Sogeri and Kerevat came into being soon after WW2. These were high-quality schools run by high-quality education professionals, who managed their charges in a disciplined manner similar to that employed in high-class secondary boarding-schools elsewhere in the British Commonwealth. The expressed intent was to be selective and to turn out a class of fit, honest, well-educated and idealistic PNG’ians who would take their places as leaders, replacing the soon-to-go Australian administrators and professionals.

 Sadly these two great institutions succumbed  in the Whitlam era to left-wing perceptions of “elitist social engineering.” Elitist schools are to socialists what garlic is reputed to be to devils and evil spirits. Now like all the other National Highs, these once-proud institutions are  just  part of today’s problems. Perhaps even beyond revival. PNG needs a good-quality, effectively elitist selective specialist education stream culminating in an updated, well-funded and objectively-managed tertiary sector including a re-invigorated Adcol. Institutions dedicated to the molding of a sound, ethical, motivated and physically-fit  class of  managers, technologists and intellectuals. Leaders who will with experience and a newly-instilled sense of objective nationalism, head up the revolution in service provision, social welfare and general ethics and communal law which must eventually come if PNG is to remain as a  civilized and positive world citizen.

Any such revolution must be underpinned by an agreement that real, meaningful academic and workplace discipline is crucial for a worthwhile outcome. Unfortunately for the lefties of this world, successful societies are led by men and women who are, ipso-facto, an elite, and  necessarily authoritarian within a democratic framework. PNG must provide elitist education for those competitively selected as worthy of the investment. Even if such a program is begun today it will be part of a long-term solution, and not a  quick-fix, though.

First-aid of a sort  is, however, available by the application of my earlier  suggestion; my preoccupation, in fact; the forced- ( forced by the votes and voices of thinkers such as the readers of this blog)-emergence of the LLGs as the basic political matrix for the nation, restoring their combined voice to a people who have never had the opportunity to exercise it in a clear, well-understood and direct way..