Focus on developing technical skills too

 OUR education system is geared towards producing more office academic populace and politicians, rather than field technical experts. 

There are no private technical institutions  in  PNG that I am aware of. There  are a lot of political scientists, economists, accountants, business managers, lawyers, office managers and  computer  programmers,  but they are not employed or are doing jobs that are not their professions. 

There is little inspiration for creativity, nation building and job creation. 

All they need are jobs to earn a living, to  earn  a good salary and some, to become extremely rich quickly. 

It seems that everyone wants to become a boss and no one wants to become a handy person. 

If you ask any primary or high school student in this country what they aspire to be, their response is always  to  become  a  lawyer,  accountant or a pilot. 

By the time we realise we cannot create  the simplest of  things  we  mostly import  and  waste  most  of our major finances on, our natural resources would have been depleted. 

I cannot think of an item that is wholly invented or created locally that  we  can  claim  as ours that is on the international market other than crude natural resources. 

We are very good in politics, but what is politics without action? 

We have to realise soon that developed  countries  achieve  their status by educating and training their technical experts and scientists through the best technical universities and military academies that are geared towards innovative creation of items or  materials that are marketable locally and abroad. 

To have reached their industrialised statuses, they provide their people with the best-equipped technical facilities and the best patriotic teachers and trainers who are engaged to train and educate scientists and soldiers to boost their strength  in war and also for later usage in a civil society. 

Achievements are created through hard work and discipline. 

Many countries support and encourage  their universities, technical colleges and military academies to compete in expert innovation inventions that inspire and upgrade their institutions  to an intelligible academic status. 

Institutions and students are awarded medals of excellence for achieving innovative creations. 

These inventions also contribute immensely to their country’s economic power and infrastructure. 

Our technical schools, military training institutions and technical universities lack the capacity to produce academic excellence for our technical scholars. 

We need political will to drive our technical expertise to an advanced capacity  to  develop  our  economy and infrastructure by providing  the  best  teachers  and facilities. 

You need to look after them as you would the lawyers and accountants. 

We need to understand what technical human resource development can do for our nation building. 

For a start, we need to eliminate corruption, greed and self-centredness. Corruption does not only refer to money, but uncalculated decisions based on false assumptions and egoistic behaviour. 

There  is  no need to send students to technical schools overseas, but provide the best facilities and well-paid teachers here. 

Boossa Kabilu 

Port Moresby