Letters

Png’S Education Crisis

PAPUA NEW Guinea, a “late developer” when it comes to formal education, has in the past 20 years expanded tertiary edu cation dramatically. Today, there are more than 68 institutions: many of these are small and inefficient, but cater to regional, provincial and parochial interests.

The recent cuts at the University of PNG have demoralised staff: “there by the grace of God go I” is the prevailing atti tude. Staff associations have threatened legal action over breach of contract, and are demanding compensation of at least one year’s salary (instead of the three months’ notice the university has of fered). But this clause is not in the con tracts of citizens with tenure or five-year contracts.

Many Papua New Guinean staff have worked at the university for up to a dec ade, and the university has invested con siderable sums in their further education only now to dump them.

Papua New Guinea is a major Pacific power with tremendous fisheries re sources. To abolish the Department of Fisheries at the University is both coun terproductive and against the stated goal of developing primary industry. All den tal training has recently been amalga mated; the abolition of the Department of Dentistry will mean the Health Depart ment has to begin over again its programs for training technicians. The Educational Research Unit has gained a reputation for effective applied research that has bene fited the nation over the past 15 years. It will not be easy to start up such institu tions after they have been closed when and if the Government changes its mind.

There is also a major bottleneck in the number of students completing Science Foundation Year. Medicine, Fisheries, Dentistry, Biology and so on are all com peting for this limited pool of students.

Moves to add Foundation Year to the Na tional High Schools might further under mine the university. What is needed is more Grade 12 leavers there are only four National High Schools to increase the pool of available science students.

Perhaps the real tragedy for PNG will be that if the university is unable to hon our its contracts it undermines its ability to recruit expatriate and national staff in the future. People will not want to work in PNG if their contracts can be cancelled at short notice with minimal compensation.

Anyone considering a job in PNG should check with someone already there as to the security of their contract.

Sheldon Weeks Educational Research Unit University of PNG Port Moresby, PNG

A Nuclear-Free Pacific

WE, THE National Executive Council of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) share our prayerful support for the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone. We are com mitted to work and witness any way we can for a nuclear-free Pacific. We believe that stockpiling, testing, transporting, or dis posing the waste of nuclear material, fuel or weaponry is a present danger to the wholeness and health of all Pacific peoples, as well as a threat to the security and in tegrity of their territories.

Now we understand that our own na tion is preparing a new “Pacific Initia tive”. First reports indicate this proposed alliance will allow and safeguard greater US presence therefore, greater US pres sure throughout the Pacific Basin. This in turn may well foreshadow an even greater political aggrandisement, with military, nuclear acceptance and accessi bility required of all our partners in the Pacific region.

The Rt Rev William Davidson and the Rev Layton P Zimmer Episcopal Peace Fellowship Washington, DC United States

Fiji Coup Questions

BETWEEN them in their two separate ar ticles your October correspondents Dr Brij Lai (Letters) and Joann Wypijewski (The Fiji Coup: Was America to Blame?) lo cate the two key factors to understanding the May coup in Fiji.

Wypijewski’s tightly argued case is ob viously the more contentious of the two statements, but for the interest of open minded readers may I just invite them to re-examine the much-circulated photo of Rabuka with the soldier in the balaclava on the day of the coup. If they have had any prolonged experience of living in Fiji I think they will have serious doubts as to whether the balaclava’d soldier pictured alongside Rabuka is either ethnic Fijian or (less likely anyway) a part-European.

For myself I have little doubt the man is neither.

Closer examination of all of the photos taken of the coup on May 14 might there fore prove interesting. So, incidently, might examination of the social composition of soldiers (conveniently?) out of the country at the time, such as those on courses in New Zealand.

C Griffin Dept of Agricultural and Intercultural Studies Western Australian College of Advanced Education Perth Western Australia