THE long lists of students who are about to start or continue university studies are appearing daily; politicians constantly tell us that these students are “the leaders of tomorrow” and the nation’s hope for the future.
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GOOD morning. There are many gifted Papua New Guineans and foreign academic staff who are dedicated to doing everything possible to help students to reach those goals. But for that great hope to come true, the students must have at the very least a commitment to making the utmost of their future.
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TOO many lack the confidence to seize the opportunity. That is in part the result of the great leap from an often rigid and unimaginative secondary school environment, typically with overcrowded classes and overworked and sometimes under-qualified teaching staff. And the students’ home background is not always conducive to tertiary success and later development.
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THE community has a responsibility to encourage these tertiary students in every way possible – through an understanding and loving environment at home, to lecturers who should make the effort to know the students they are teaching and who can help them define, then achieve goals.
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THE worst scenario is the student who is so lacking in self-confidence despite adequate or better final school marks that he or she takes refuge in arrogance, a quality that often expresses itself in contempt for lecturers, for university administrations and by extension, the world at large.
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QUESTIONING attitudes on the part of students are natural; most of us when younger committed ourselves to re-inventing not only the wheel, but the world at large. But higher education should surely seek to so develop individuals that they have strong powers of analysis, can conduct unbiased and meaningful research, and can fight, if necessary, to help achieve that new and better world.
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FINALLY, governments have a responsibility to help make those student goals come true, in the interests of both the students and above all for the future of the country. We hope that the present Government will seize that opportunity as academic year 2008 begins and help the universities in their task of developing our best young Papua New Guineans. Cheers!
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- Dee Nesenolis