Marcus aiding school dropouts

The National People
Mapex Training Institute managing director Marcus Palem Kara with the managing director of Tropicana Ltd Dame Sandra Lau during the graduation ceremony. – Nationalpics by ROSELYN ELLISON

By ROSELYN ELLISON
CHILDREN who drop out of school in Grade Six and Grade Eight are being given a lifeline by Marcus Palem Kara.
He established the Mapex Training Institute specifically to help them continue their education, offering courses which can help them get jobs.
“Parents wanted me to train their children on courses so that they can find jobs quickly. So I looked at the industry needs and found that there are special courses for example flight attendants, sales and ticketing, customs and flight forwarding, ports and shipping, occupational safety and health, plant operator. The courses are easy to provide the training for.
“I made a submission to the training council saying most private and government institutions are running trainings for only grades 12 and 10 but the poor Grade Eight and Grade Six were missing out.”
Marcus, 43, is from Dry Wara village in Baiyer, Western Highlands. He is married with three sons.
He started his education at the Kingaringka Primary School in 1986. He completed Grade Six in 1991.
In 1992, he was selected for Grade Seven at the Pombolova High School. He completed Grade 10 in 1995. He completed Grade 11 and Grade 12 in 1996 and 1997 at the Mount Hagen Secondary School.

“ Parents wanted me to train their children on courses so that they can find jobs quickly.”

In 1998, he enrolled at the University of PNG to study Psychology as his major. He included Social Works and Business Studies as the minor courses. He graduated in 2002. In 2003 he was employed by the National AIDS Council. He became as trainer of trainers on HIV and AIDS. He moved around provinces conducting awareness on the HIV and AIDS. He also trained trainers.
He conducted a research on how he could establish his own institution.
“I was thinking: Why can’t I establish my own training institution? I therefore registered Mapex Training and Consultancy services.”
In 2005 he conducted trainings and courses on proposal writing skills, projects planning, project management, small business start-up skills and report writing skills.
From 2005 to 2010 he travelled around the country conducting trainings focusing on the five courses.
Many parents wanted him to help their children who cannot make it to college or university, high and secondary schools as well as technical vocational education training (TVET) after completing grades 6, 8, 10 and 12
The parents wanted him to help them by providing some trainings which would help get jobs.
He noticed many school dropouts returning home and getting involved in illegal activities such as drugs.
Marcus wanted to help these children. He wanted to help the drug dealers and criminals get off the street by providing them training so that they can find jobs.
In Sept last year MTI opened a campus in Kokopo, East New Britain catering for students from the New Guinea Islands region. The demand there is high.
He thanked the ENB administration especially the Kokopo-Vunamami urban local level government, Kokopo City Authority, and Kokopo district administration for giving him a green light to set up the campus right in the heart of Kokopo city.