More centres needed to absorb rejected school leavers: Governor

By PETER WARI
THE Government and the Education Department need to build more technical and vocational education training (Tvet) centres around the country to absorb thousands of Grade 12 school leavers rejected by the system every year, a governor says.
Southern Highlands Governor William Powi said this during the 16th graduation of Mapex Training Institute’s certificate and diploma courses on Friday in Port Moresby.
He said between 25,000 and 30,000 students graduated every year in Papua New Guinea but national universities and colleges had the capacity to absorb only 10,000 of them.
He said the remaining 15,000 students missed out and had to find other avenues to get training and earning tertiary qualifications but many simply returned to their villages. “In 10 years’ time, about 150,000 unemployed youths will be roaming the streets involving in illegal activities, only a few will battle with the system and become successful,” he said.
Powi said training those who missed out was an important endeavour because it would provide them with useable and valuable skills to gain employment or enable them to work for themselves.
He said the country needed a large skilled workers group.