Kidu likely to call it a day

Former minister for community development, Dame Carol Kidu, said in parliament that she could quit parliament by the end of this session.
She said this when contributing to the debate on Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s inaugural speech in parliament yesterday.
She congratulated the new government saying it had a good team with many statesmen who would guide it through.
She said the speech by O’Neill was very good for the nation but warned that the same old mistakes should not be repeated by the new regime.
She said although she would be retiring from po­litics, all that were pro­mised to the people should be done and deli­vered to them.
Dame Carol said she supported the idea of free education from primary to secondary school but many issues needed to be considered before implementing a good policy which was important to the nation’s development.
“We should not allow many students flooding to school without having the necessary infrastructure in place,” she said.
She said the best idea was to open up many education centres so that the many drop-outs get the opportunity to further their education there.
She said it was useless to have a free education po­licy which did not consi­der other aspects of the education system such classrooms plus learning and teaching materials.
Dame Carol said teachers were also important and the problem of teacher shortage should be sorted out effectively.
“Let’s be honest with the people of PNG because we want quality education,” she said.
However, the government said it was capable of making the free education
a reality for all students from primary to secondary and subsidy for tertiary education.