Solomons PM

Stirs Media

NEWSPAPERS and broadcasting can make or break South Pacific development efforts, according to Solomon Islands PM Mr Ezekial Alebua.

But, he says, media coverage of the region still leaves much to be desired.

The Prime Minister was speaking in Honiara in December, at the opening of a conference on media reporting of Pacific affairs. The conference was sponsored by Pacbroad, which runs the news exchange system among the Pacific countries.

Mr Alebua said freedom of the press was a principle for healthy, democratic so cieties. In Solomon Islands, he said, this freedom was actively practiced and, in some instances, over-practiced. “The freedom of the press should always carry with it the responsibility to inform, edu cate and entertain, but not to confront and confuse,” he said.

Meanwhile, Solomon Islands will not send any new students to the University of the South Pacific in Suva this year. The Minister for Education, Mr Joini Tutua, said that foreign assistance would enable the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education to provide more advanced studies.

The Solomons will also stop sending students to the Fiji School of Medicine.

The Government, Mr Tutua said, was now looking to Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand for the training of its doctors. However, students currently at the University of the South Pacific and the Fiji School of Medicine would be able to con tinue their studies there. □