Papua New Guinea

Partners situated in Papua New Guinea

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Papua New Guinea in a nutshell

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea)

Papua New Guinea (Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Australasia, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands (the western portion of the island is a part of the Indonesia provinces of Papua and West Papua). It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia.

The population is 6.7 million.

The capital is Port Moresby.

Papua New Guinea is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, with over 850 indigenous languages and at least as many traditional societies. It is also one of the most rural, with only 18% of its people living in urban centres. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.

The majority of the population lives in traditional societies and practise subsistence-based agriculture. These societies and clans have some explicit acknowledgement within the nation's constitutional framework. The PNG Constitution (Preamble 5(4)) expresses the wish for traditional villages and communities to remain as viable units of Papua New Guinean society, and for active steps to be taken in their preservation. The PNG legislature has enacted various laws in which a type of tenure called "customary land title" is recognised, meaning that the traditional lands of the indigenous peoples have some legal basis to inalienable tenure. This customary land notionally covers most of the usable land in the country (some 97% of total land area); alienated land is either held privately under State Lease or is government land. Freehold Title (also known as fee simple) can only be held by Papua New Guinea citizens.

After being ruled by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea gained its independence from Australia in 1975. It remains a realm of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Many people live in extreme poverty, with about one third of the population living on less than US$1.25 per day.

Papua New Guinea is divided into four regions - these are not the primary administrative divisions but are quite significant in many aspects of government, commercial, sporting and other activities. In political terms the nation has 20 province-level divisions: 18 provinces, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and the National Capital District. Each province is divided into one or more districts, which in turn are divided into one or more Local Level Government areas.

Provinces are the primary administrative divisions of the country. Provincial governments are branches of the national government — Papua New Guinea is not a federation of provinces.

Source : http://www.cia.gov

Papua New Guinea is one of the most heterogeneous nations in the world. There are hundreds of ethnic groups indigenous to Papua New Guinea, the majority being from the group known as Papuans, whose ancestors arrived in the New Guinea region tens of thousands of years ago. Many remote Papuan tribes still have only marginal contact with the outside world. The others are Austronesians, their ancestors having arrived in the region less than 4000 years ago. There are also numerous people from other parts of the world now resident, including Chinese, Europeans, Australians, Filipinos, Polynesians and Micronesians. At the brink of Papuan independence in 1975, there were 40,000 expatriates (mostly Australian and Chinese) in Papua New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea has more languages than any other country, with over 820 indigenous languages, representing twelve percent of the world's total. Indigenous languages are classified into two large groups: Austronesian languages and non-Austronesian (or Papuan languages). There are three official languages for Papua New Guinea.

1. English is an official language and is the language of government and the education system, but it is not widely spoken.
2. The primary lingua franca of the country is Tok Pisin (commonly known in English as New Guinea Pidgin or Melanesian Pidgin), in which much of the debate in Parliament is conducted, many information campaigns and advertisements are presented, and until recently a national newspaper, Wantok, was published. The only area where Tok Pisin is not prevalent is the southern region of Papua, where people often use...
3. The third official language, Hiri Motu.

Although it lies in the Papua region, Port Moresby has a highly diverse population which primarily uses Tok Pisin, and to a lesser extent English, with Motu spoken as the indigenous language in outlying villages. With an average of only 7,000 speakers per language, Papua New Guinea has a greater density of languages than any other nation on earth except Vanuatu.

The courts and government practice uphold the constitutional right to freedom of speech, thought, and belief, and no legislation to curb those rights has been adopted, though a previous Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea and an outspoken proponent of Pentecostal Christianity frequently urged legislative and other curbs on the activities of Muslims in the country.

The 2000 census showed 96% of citizens were members of a Christian church; however, many citizens combine their Christian faith with some pre-Christian traditional indigenous practices.

Papua New Guinea education policy

A large proportion of the population are illiterate. Particularly women are affected.

Papua New Guinea education system

(sourced mainly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Papua_New_Guinea - which is short and out of date)

Much of the education in the country is provided by church institutions. This includes 500 schools of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea.

In the 1980s, up to year 12 (matriculation) there were:

• 2600 community schools - grades 1 to 6
• 120 provincial high schools - grades 7 to 10
• 4 national high schools - the only institutions offering full-time grades 11 and 12
• the College of Distance Education - grades 7 to 10
• the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (matriculation studies)
• limited private education provision - pre-school to grade 12.

Higher education

Papua New Guinea has six universities apart from other major tertiary institutions.

Universities in Papua New Guinea

The two founding universities are the:

• University of Papua New Guinea based in the National Capital District
• Papua New Guinea University of Technology based outside of Lae, in Morobe Province.

The other universities which were once colleges, were established recently after gaining government recognition. These are the

1. University of Goroka in the Eastern Highlands province
2. Divine Word University (run by the Catholic Church) in Madang province
3. Vudal Agriculture University in East New Britain province
4. Pacific Adventist University (run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church) in the National Capital District.
5. Papua New Guinea University of Natural Resources and Environment (Vudal) in Rabaul

Virtual Campuses in HE

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

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References

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