Afterthoughts

Recently, there was a get-together of interested organis ations in Port Moresby to discuss the problems of youth.

One of the speakers put forward the view that Papua New Guinea should be looking for “home-grown” solutions to these problems instead of using imported solutions “like scouting and guiding”, as he put it.

The first thing I would like to say about this, as one of those responsible for introducing scouting and guiding to pre-war Papua back in the 19205, is that these movements were not introduced to solve the problems of youth. In those days youth was not a problem, either to itself or anyone else. Scouting and guiding were introduced simply as a use ful and enjoyable supplement to the system of schooling which had already been imported and in which I had be come involved.

Over five decades the scout and guide movements have proved themselves both useful, educative and enjoyable to thousands of young people in Papua New Guinea; and while it is true that in the first place they were imported, it is also true that no effort has been spared to adapt what is, in essence, a very flexible scheme to meet the needs of the youth of Papua New Guinea. The basic aim in PNG, as in Baden-Powell’s turn-of-the-century England, has been to help young people to be self-reliant and unselfish in a decreasingly self-reliant and increasingly-selfish world.

But to get back to the problems of youth. As I have said, youth in pre-war Papua, where PNG’s scouting and guiding began, didn’t have any problems. They weren’t a problem to the communities into which they had been born and in which they grew up. There was, of course, the odd misfit, but the communal system of the time could generally pull him into line.

Most of our post-war problems, including the problems of youth, are imported problems, so there doesn’t seem to be anything too inappropriate in importing solutions for them.

Of course, if we can think up some home-grown solutions that will be fine, and will enhance Papua New Guinea’s prestige in the world community. We shall then be able to listen with less embarrassment to that smug little song which the National Broadcasting Commission never tires of inflicting on us in which Papua New Guinea is apos trophised with the words “nations shall learn from you”.

To some of us, listening to the local news, it has not been quite clear what the world’s nations were learning from us.

But if we came up with a cure for the world’s youth prob lems we would really be putting ourselves on the inter national map.

In the meantime, what’s wrong with importing cures for

imported ills?

But let’s distinguish clearly between cures and pain killers. Things like scouting, guiding, youth clubs and even the much-advocated National Youth Corps, are not sol utions at all; they are only palliatives. Whatever may be true of the rural countryside into which the problems of youth have spilled, in the urban areas there is only one real cure, and that is a cash income for every school leaver.

And for most of them this means a wage-earning job and

a fortnightly pay-packet.

The efforts of people like Sir John Guise and of insti tutions like the Makana Vocational Centre on the outskirts of Port Moresby to re-ruralise urban youth cannot be too highly praised. But this is an uphill task, and we cannot hope that it will be successful in more than a small number of cases.

Equally praiseworthy are the schemes for setting up some

of these young people in cottage industries and small-scale businesses. The vocational centres have played a notable part in this exercise. These centres, which take in primary school “dropouts” at 15 for a one or two year course are probably giving better value for less expenditure than any other Education Department-sponsored institution. But their ability to put young people into income-earning situ ations is limited.

For the vast majority of urban school leavers it may be said that there is no cure for their condition other than a

pay-packet.

This is not to say of course that the pain-killers are value less. Scouts, guides, youth clubs, church or community sponsored school-leaver centres these are all of great value, provided they are recognised as palliatives, not solutions.

The proposed para-military National Youth Corps is another matter. As I see it, this could be a very dangerous exercise indeed.

The idea appeals to many of our politicians because they envisage it as a way of getting public works done on the cheap. Actually, it would not be cheap at all. It would be very, very expensive; and if it were just a question of getting public works carried out, it would be cheaper to have them

done by day-labour or by contract.

We are told that the discipline and comradeship of such a corps would do the young people in it a lot of good.

Ideally, this may be so, but the ideal would only be realised if you had the right kind of people as leaders, instructors, supervisors, or whatever you choose to call them. They would be hard to come by, and you would need a lot of them one for every 30 boys if the corps were a voluntary one; one for every 10 if it were compulsory.

Furthermore, what happens to these youths when they have completed their two or three years service in the corps?

Many of them will be primary school toss-outs already frus trated and bitter at being unable to get jobs. If, after their stint in the corps, they still can’t get jobs, their frustration and bitterness will be increased tenfold. They will be fruit ripe for the plucking by communist or other agitators.

I have heard it put forward as an argument for a youth corps that these young people owe the cummunity some thing. This is a two-edged sword. They may well retort, “Right. We’ve paid the debt. Now the community owes us

something a job.”

No, there is no cure for the problems of youth in urban Papua New Guinea other than a pay-packet or some other kind of reliable cash income for every school-leaver. And that is something we seem to be getting further and further away from.

This is, basically, an economic problem. But education comes into it. Last month, for lack of space, I ended with a question; “Where do we go from here?” Lest I should be thought to be dodging, I will take up this question again next month.