PNG welcomes Japan’s support for education

By AGNES FIFI UKI
CHILDREN are our national asset and our future human capital who will effect national development, Governor-General Sir Michael Ogio says.Sir Michael made the comment at the launching of the National Education Media Policy, EQITV Phase 2 and handover of equipment by the Japan International Cooperation Agency to the National Education Media Centre at the Hideaway Hotel, in Port Moresby, yesterday.The theme of the launching of these three achievements of the National Department of Education was “Education Media powered by technology, fuelled by information and driven by knowledge to reach the unreached in PNG”.Sir Michael said he was passionate about the education of children and “they are our number one focus and clients in our national education system”.He said the success of the country depended on the quality of human resources it had. “We cannot talk about development in the country without developing our human resources because educating and training our people are the fundamental building blocks for our country’s social and economic development.“Despite our positive economic growth that we experienced from 1981 to 1988, 1991 to 1994 and 2003 to 2011 and our economy continues to grow.“These tangible economic gains have not been translated into improvements on our education indicators and that saddens me,” he said.“Many of our school-aged children are not in school, many school-aged children continue to leave school without completing grades 8, 10 and 12, many communities do not have schools and many established schools are closed.“Consequently we are rated very lowly on our education development indicators compared to other developing nations in the Asia-Pacific region.”He commended the Department of Education for developing a National Education Media policy.Japanese Embassy counsellor and deputy chief of mission Satoshi Abe handed over two sets of projectors, photocopy machines, printing machines, video cameras, digital cameras , 10 laptops and a vehicle worth K200,000 to the national education media centre.