Knowledge gap

By ZACHERY PER
THE world is fast moving into the information and communication technology (ICT) space but the gap between the haves and have-nots is forever widening, a school principal in Eastern Highlands says.
Principal of Mando High School at the foot of famous Daulo Pass, Bob Hamakore pointed out the sad reality of Papua New Guinea’s 80 per cent rural population including school children having little to no access at all to ICT equipment and facilities.
“The ICT accessibility gap between the privileged (haves) and disadvantaged (have-nots) is widening, schools in towns and cities have computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones with relevant educational programmes installed.
“While schools in remote areas (districts) in the provinces have no access to such ICT equipment and facilities,” he said.
He said there was a huge disparity in dissemination of quality education to same school aged children across PNG in urban and rural settings.
He said the ministries of ICT and education have a lot at stake in bridging this gap in the name of distributing equal quality education including ICT skills and knowledge.
Hamakore revealed this to The National in an interview to acknowledge non-profit organisation Lite Haus International (LHI) that presented 65 desktop computers to his Mando High School and its feeder primary schools on Monday this week.
Principal Hamakore who was the happiest man on the presentation day thanked LHI and Director Raim for choosing Mando and its feeder schools to be the first recipients of computers.
He assured Raim that the equipment would be put into good use for the intended purpose to support the students in delivery of quality education.
LHI has donated 15 desktop computers each to Korepa, Yamiufa and Mando primary schools, with Mando High School getting 20 computers. There was a total of 65 desktop computers for Daulo district schools as being the first out of 30 schools receiving computers in Eastern Highlands.
Head teachers and boards of management chairmen who received the computers were: Yamiufa Primary School head teacher Dominic Talamini and chairman Leo Momba, Korepa head teacher John Tai and chairman Albert Bilak and Mando Primary School head teacher Ipsy Bino and chairman Moxy Tutu.
The presentation at Mando High School was the official launch of LHI rolling out distributions of computers to 30 schools in Eastern Highlands.
The occasion was witnessed by Daulo District Education Manager Singip Kolo and Eastern Highlands Teaching Services Director Francis Alua who both applauded LHI for supporting schools with expensive computers installed with the latest education and research programmes.
They urged schools to appreciated and make good use of the computers as such support was hard to come by.
The head teacher of Mando Primary School who spoke onbehalf of the recipient schools thanked LHI country director and their IT specialists for presenting the computers and setting them up for use.
LHI country director Peter Raim said: “We are giving you these computers freely to enhance delivery of quality education to students; today we are moving fast into the digitised world. Our help is saving money and time for schools to buy computers, we have also installed 9.6 million programme applications.”
He said all the information needed was installed in the computers. Staff, students and school managements did not library buildings and soon there would be be no more chalk and dust.
“We are fast moving into the modern era, LHI is supporting schools in the provinces to change and catch up with the modern digital future lying forward, we are also installing E-library for students to read book and do researches from the computers.”
Raim told the schools that since the computers distributed have installations of all the necessary information and applications, they were all off-line meaning they did not need data to go online.
He urged students, teachers and school board managements to take ownership of the equipment because if they were destroy or stolen or a house were they were kept got burnt down, LHI would not come back to replace them.
“However, if students accidently cause damages to the equipment LHI will replace them. Teachers will be trained by LHI information technology specialists to have them up-skilled so they teach students to use computers efficiently,” he said.
LHI has already supported 223 schools in PNG and 319 schools globally in countires like Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Philippines, Samoa as well as some in Europe.