Govt must be held liable, saysTVET

THE Government must be held responsible if we miss out on the 7,000 jobs reserved for Papua New Guineans in the PNG LNG project, a spokesman for vocational education trainers said.
“This was because the Government had failed its people by not looking into technical schools education,” John Melson, representing Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) on the Papua New Guinea Teachers Association branch in Western Highlands province said.
“If the Government had trained more technical people, there should not be any reason why foreigners would come here and work.”
The Government must be blamed because it had failed to upgrade TVET and produce more skilled people,” Mr Melson said.
He said TVET centres in PNG lacked proper training facilities such as computers, printers, scanning machines, woodworking machineries, brake/disc re-facing machines and many other machines and equipment needed for these schools.
Mr Melson said lack of such facilities and other materials needed to provide quality training was forcing the LNG developer to look elsewhere for skilled manpower.
“It’s sad to note that many of our people lack skills and knowledge to work in the big LNG project.
A well skilled trained force would drive this country forward through development,” Mr Melson said.