Student Boycotts Are Reasonable Responses To Decades Long Government Coverups On How Bad PNG School have Become
Those who have studied overseas know in an
instant how bad our PNG schools are, all the way to university level. An article in PNG Blogs some time back (http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/07/how-bad-are-papua-new-guineas.html)
revealed it in black and white rankings.
Our best PNG university, Divine Word, is
worse than the best university in the failed state of Somalia. Every time politicians speak at
commencements they promise schools something that almost always is never
delivered. Parents in rural areas cry
for new classrooms but say nothing about teachers to teach the children, or
books that allow children to learn more than their teachers.
This year we have already seen a boycott by
UNRE (former Vudal College) students over mismanagement at that institution. UNRE is one of the worst ranked universities
in the world.
Now we have a student strike at Polytech in
Lae. In all cases, the core issue is bad
education. The source of that problem
is continued government pretence about supporting our schools, but never
putting significant money where their mouths are.
Last year we had the infamous Unitech Saga
boycotts that drew national attention (http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/04/why-2014-unitech-boycott-succeeded.html). Again the core issue was the quality of
education and students getting sick of the corruption and money mis-use that
had characterised the previous administration there. UPNG joined in a strike, but it was
short-lived as the government, through OHE, had close ties with the UPNG Vice
Chancellor and moved quickly to compromise the boycott and buy out student
government leaders (http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/08/covering-up-crime-at-upng.html).
Peter O'Neill has been a disaster for
improving the delivery of quality education.
His free education strategy is nothing more than a ploy to encourage
dependency on the government, which enhances handout mentality, but with the
goal of generating more votes for Peter O'Neill and his PNC in 2017. Free education has made the quality of
education worse as classrooms have become
packed to the walls with roughly the same number of new teachers coming
out of the system.
O'Neill's self serving "Peter O'Neill
University" (http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/09/pngs-master-of-deception-unveils-new.html)
to be built in his home province (of course!) is an obvious middle finger
flipoff directed towards PNG's existing universities ( http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/10/go-rot-in-hell-peter-oneil-tells-upng.html ).
PNG universities have apparently overall
have received no increase in funding during the entire Somare and O'Neill
administrations, if you consider the effects of inflation. They have actually declined in funding. Despite all this, the Vice Chancellors,
while apparently complaining a lot in private, have never had the guts to make
this into a national issue, to be debated by all. Last year O'Neill bought the silence of
Divine Word University's President, Fr Jan Czuba, by appointing him to head
this new university in the middle of nowhere.
ACT NOW PNG was the first to come out on
the social media, putting together all the student protests in their common
thread ie that students are sick and tired of bad education and bad learning
conditions in PNG (http://www.actnowpng.org/blog/k780m-stolen-why-are-students-still-boycotting-classes-rundown-facilities).
The Lae Polytech students have it
right: where it the promised money? Where are the results of this promised money
to improve their learning environment?
Where the students are wrong is in blaming
the Polytech administration for the problem.
On the other hand they are justified if blaming the administration for
not speaking up publically against the government's strangling of education in
this country and the continued coverup of what they're doing.
May student strikes and boycotts begin to spread
throughout this land in a rising testimony by students to the government and us
largely silent parents that enough is enough.