More people, less quality education

The National Letters

A COMMONLY-held view is that quality education will enable people to make informed and better decisions about their personal and professional life, and will contribute to a control over population growth.
Instead, in Papua New Guinea, the quality of education has deteriorated rapidly with a fast population growth.
In the next 50 years, PNG will have a large population that is literally brain-dead, which will have a serious ramification for economic management and growth.
The following four factors are contributing to the fast population growth in PNG.

  • Poor quality education: graduating students lack numeracy, literature, governance, ethics, and life skills. This problem has been plugged with a lack or shortage of human, financial, and other resources, including a lack of family planning education;
  • taxation policy in PNG: The policy allows parents to claim a deduction against tax payable each fortnight for each child, or claim school fee refunds from the Internal Revenue Commission. This is encouraging large family sizes, for more deductions and claims;
  • free education policy of the Government: Parents are making best use of this policy by producing so many children for schooling, resulting in very large families. This is also putting a strain on the Government to fund the entire health and education system, and develop and sustain transport, communication, and energy infrastructure required to support economic development and growth in PNG. Other problems created by this policy are corruption and fraud, which are now rife in the education and health systems; and,
  • Uncontrolled growth of the education system: A rapid expansion of primary and secondary levels of education, combined with a rapid growth of private education, running in parallel with the Government education system, is putting an enormous strain on limited public resources, in terms of financial, human, and other resources. This is contributing to the declining quality of education and a fast population growth.

Abolish the free education policy and taxation incentives, and rationalise the entire education system to make it become more affordable and sustainable for the Government with a focus on quality education and family planning.
These measures will assist control the population growth in PNG.
Public resources should be used on sustainable development of health system; tourism, agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors; financing, marketing, management, and insurance infrastructure; transport, communication, and energy infrastructure; and small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs).
These will support economic development and growth in PNG and absorb more people into formal employment.

Concerned Taxpayer
Port Moresby