END THE SCHOOL YEAR, VICE CHANCELLOR MELLAM! BUT TELL THE TRUTH WHY YOU HAVE TO DO IT! [AND TOK STRET MINISTER TABAR, WE’RE TIRED OF YOUR LIES TOO]


by UPNG ACADEMIC
 
UPNG Vice Chancellor Albert Mellam says that if the boycott of classes continues, that the UPNG 2016 academic school year will be terminated and students will be sent home.

Vice Chancellor, some of us are growing very tired of your constant evading of the truth.  But we will not let you tell the students lies.  It is time that everything gets put on the table.

Students, hear this:   at the rate the government has been supplying the university with funds, UPNG has no idea right now how they can stay open in Semester 2.  This is Peter O’Neill’s fault, but Albert Mellam is now trying to shift the blame to you students.   Mellam hopes that Peter O’Neill will pat him on the back for a job well done and maybe promise him more dormitories.  

UPNG is not receiving the promised 2016 budget allocation even though the money promised in 2016 was already a reduction from 2015.  The government is dead broke and things are going to get worse in June.  If that is the situation with UPNG, it is certainly the situation with all the other public universities.  

VC Mellam now wants to shift the blame on you students!  The fact is, he should have raised big stinks against the government since the beginning of this year UPNG wasn’t getting its promised allotments.  If he was complaining behind the scenes and the government did not respond, he should have gone public.  Unfortunately for us all, Mellam is lots of meaningless talk but no real action when it comes to defending the university’s independence and getting proper support from the government.  Do you ever see him make statements to the newspapers about those vital issues?  That’s why UPNG is getting more run down by the day.   Mellam is not a fighter like the students and you can see the results all around UPNG from that ineffective strategy.

Also dear students, understand that it is almost impossible to shut down a school year.   This is exactly why student boycotts are so effective elsewhere in the world and here in PNG too.   Minister Tabar says he will replace boycotting students with eager new intake.  That is a real laugh.  Fact of the matter is that he can’t do it!   There are many reasons. Let’s start with the fact that the new intake won’t be able to do Semester 1 this year, it’s too late.  How do they do Semester 2 before they do Semester 1?   Not only that, it would take about a month to select the replacements for the students being booted out.  These replacements generally did not perform very well on their tests.  That is why they didn’t get a space at UPNG in the first place.   Very few of them will get HECAS and in any case, the government has no money to pay the airfares of even a small new intake of HECAS.   

It will be hilarious if the government pays UPNG staff and academics for the rest of the year to preside over an empty university.   But that is no different than what the government is doing now in most government departments.  There is no money to do anything except pay staff to sit and do very little.  

The PNG government has in many areas become dysfunctional.

You will notice, however, that the government also does not furlough government workers and they won’t do it to UPNG faculty and staff either.   They know the anger that will explode if they dare cut the pay of innocent people in order to cover up their own mistakes.  The student boycott will be nothing compared to out of work UPNG faculty and staff taking to the streets.  We are much more creative at making trouble than the students.   

The fact is that the government cannot end the school year as much as they might threaten.  If they end the school year and terminate all the students, what happens next year.   How will they fill the Year 2 slots?  Year 3?  Year 4?   They can’t!    They will have a new crop of school leavers from high school who have applied to come in.   But how can they let all the Year 2, 3 and 4 students from the boycott back in but none of the current Year 1 students, when all of them have to repeat the year next year.  They can’t do it without creating much bigger disasters.  

THE GOVERNMENT IS HELPLESS AGAINST THE BOYCOTT.   THEY CANNOT CLOSE DOWN THE SCHOOL YEAR.   IF STUDENTS STAY IN SOLIDARITY AND PREVENT ANY AND ALL ATTEMPTS BY THE GOVERNMENT TO SPLIT YOU INTO FACTIONS, THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TERMINATE ALL OF YOU EITHER.  

Things are getting exciting now.   UPNG doesn’t have any money to complete Semester 2 right now the way the government is allocating funds.   But if the school year were to be terminated, it will create a major disaster next year with student intake, as well as create a semester of empty university with paid faculty and staff.   If they cut academic teaching requirements to get through the school year in some fashion after the boycott ends, your degrees will be worthless.   On the other hand, your degrees these days are close to worthless anyway in being able to get a job after you graduate.     

THE ONLY OPTION LEFT OPEN TO THE GOVERNMENT IS TO END THE BOYCOTT QUICKLY.   That way Peter O’Neill wins, and so does Minister Tabar and VC Mellam.   

How will the government end your boycott if you students refuse to end it?   They will first try to trick you with promises that O’Neill will step down in return for you ending the boycott.  University officials know that you students have no power whatsoever except for the boycott.  Once the boycott ends, all the energy disappears and the government gets control of you.   

If they can’t trick you, they will try to bribe your SRC leaders into calling off the boycott.  They will try to split you into factions with alcohol and bribes to make a referendum where the majority of students vote to go back to class.  For this to work, it has to be done within the next 3 weeks at the most.  
Their last resort will be to create a major disturbance inside campus that gives them the excuse to send in the police, arrest the SRC leaders, or otherwise take violent action.  They will do this to surprise, horrify and frighten you so severely and without prior warning that it will shock you into going back to class.  If they success with that, the government wins and your student boycott will have been for nothing.

What the administration is unlikely to do is to cut off your food and try to wear you down into giving up.  They know that if all students leave the campus in disgust, the school year is screwed and all the disasters will start coming down on their heads, lasting not only this year but next year and beyond.   They are also unlikely to dissolve the SRC to stop you because that too could backfire against them.   
I have shared with you all the tricks that the government is likely to use against you.   You have no excuse to let the government try one of these maneuvers and defeat you.   Many of us have been through past UPNG boycotts either as students or academics and we know all the tricks.

Malakai Tabar and Albert Mellam are trying to protect themselves. They are lying to you students hoping they can frighten you into submission. Do not compromise this vital national issue. Peter O’Neill must step down and a caretaker PM appointed that will not be Peter O’Neill’s teaboy and continue making life difficult for those fighting corruption in this government.

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