THE FALSE PROMISE OF EDUCATION

BY LUPAN BAGAT

State sponsored Formal education and training. Many of our people are being fooled into thinking that by sending their children to school, there is a bright future awaiting them. That is far from truth and reality in this country.
Parents are also being fooled into thinking that they are getting government services when new schools are built. That is not a sign of true development.

The stupidity of the free education policy for primary and secondary schools is also just that – plain and sheer stupidity. It does not do anything at all for our education quality nor sustainability levels.
What people must realise is that any politician who is paying for your child’s education is indirectly buying your vote. We all would be better off if we insisted on such assistance to schools to come in the form of better libraries, science labs, textbooks and teaching aids as well as learning materials.

Personally I feel that a reversion to the old system of NATSCHOL would be much better that this useless free education at the primary levels. Why? Because at this level, the competency and quality of a student is unknown. It is only after the final examinations in Grade 12 that we will have a true idea of who is capable of further academic and tertiary level education. These are our best and they deserve to have more invested in them than those who will drop off by the wayside after significant amounts of state investment have been made in them. 

And the same goes for those who qualify to go into TVET type centres for vocational and technical education. They should also be sponsored by the state because they will come out ready to contribute directly back to the state in terms of income tax and skills enhancement. A student who drops out after grade 10 or 12 will have wasted all that state funding that would have been better utilised elsewhere.
Where to after school?

The large volume of school drop outs entering our streets every year is not a laughing matter. There is a severe shortage of spaces available for workers as the economy continues to shrink. It already was shrinking prior to the Corona plandemic and thereafter has only gotten worse. For PNG, i assess that we really have no excuse for this situation. 

Papua New Guinea is a large scale exporter of significant amounts of raw unprocessed raw natural products as well as significant amount of mineral and petroleum resources. The failure of this country to not have any significant downstream processing facilities onshore is a question that our so called ‘leaders’ have to answer. How is possible that after decades of independence. We are still exporting timber, gold, oil, copper, fish and everything else? How is it that for a small country like Dubai who only had oil to start with now have their own refineries and have expanded into tourism and agriculture? Why has Singapore with n resources except a sea port suddenly grown from there to a country that has world quality education, tourism and a thriving shipping, electronics and manufacturing industry? 

PNG should now relook the way in which we view our long term strategies for development and divert all available resources into expanding our agricultural and manufacturing base. This is where the answer to minimising the impacts of youth disillusionment, disenfranchisement and potential revolt lies…in meaningful engagement and occupation. Not in pleasing parents with “free education”. There is nothing free in life and the cost of free education is the opportunity cost of investment if job creation.
The government that comes in after 2022 must be a government that focuses on diversification and enlargement of our tax base through creating more employment opportunities in manufacturing and downstream processing. An executive I truly admire called Mr Price of Laga Industries has already publicly shown the way. Indeed James Marape opened one of their factories recently and made a lot of noise about agriculture. With respect to Marape, we have heard the same noise many times already with nothing to show and money disappearing into the pockets of paper farmers and politicians as well as their cronies. Continuing to entertain people with questionable backgrounds in key sectors is killing this country but I consider him to be a weak and visionless leader anyway.

We need to make many cuts and experience a lot of pain to turn this country around. To start, we need to cease free primary and secondary education and divert these monies into sponsoring students into tertiary and TVET institutions. They will add to the standard and quality of our work ready workforce.
Then we need to cease all direct log exports and force logging companies to set up downstream processing facilities. If they refuse, revoke their licences and ship them out.
Then we need to halt all direct export of gold and silver from this country. All gold and silver must be shipped to a government vault and then sold overseas through the State so that all income is properly assessed, taxed and accounted for. We have too much smuggling and underreporting in this area which has seen vast amounts of gold leaving our shares undeclared. All direct flights and shipments into mining camps must be ceased.

We also need to have independently installed and monitored counters at all outlet vales for all the oil and gas that is piped and shipped to refineries and ships. This will ensure we know exactly how much is being shipped out of the country.

Are all these measures impossible or new? NO. They are being done and practised in other countries. Why is our government not doing this here? Who is benefiting from these glaring oversights that permit underreporting or false reporting of exports?

A Way forward
With 2022 around the corner, I urge my fellow citizens to think fully and thoroughoy on these options and see if we can make them work. It is our country and we only have this one country to call home. let us put our heads together to make it the home and country we can be proud of.
Any politician who does not have such nationalistic sentiments or visions must not be voted back into parliament, even if it means civil unrest and disobedience. Use all legal means to get real, visionary and patriotic leaders like Dr Lino, Peter Yama, Bire Kimisopa, Gary Juffa, Jackson Kiakari and others of similar calibre into parliament so we can see this country progressing and developing.