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Papua New Guinea
by Paul Bacsich
Partners and Experts in Papua New Guinea
None.
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 around 600 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.
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.
- English is an official language and is the language of government and the education system, but it is not widely spoken.
- 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...
- 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.
Education in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea education policy
A large proportion of the population are illiterate. Particularly women are affected.
(sourced mainly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Papua_New_Guinea - which is short and out of date).
According to a joint publication by ICDE, only three quarters of eligible students are enrolled in primary education and only one quarter of eligible students are enrolled in secondary education.
Source: * Regulatory Frameworks for Distance Education: A pilot study in the Southwest Pacific/South East Asia Region. Final Report, DEHub, the Australasian Council for Open and Distance Education (ACODE), the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) and the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), December 2011, http://www.icde.org/projects/regulatory_frameworks_for_distance_education/final_report, April 2012.
Schools in Papua New Guinea
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.
Further and Higher education
Papua New Guinea has six universities apart from other major tertiary institutions. Full details can be found in a statement from the Commission for Higher Education at http://www.ohe.gov.pg/che/statement.html
Universities in Papua New Guinea
The two founding universities are the:
- University of Papua New Guinea (public) based in the National Capital District - http://www.upng.ac.pg
- Papua New Guinea University of Technology (Unitech, public) based outside of Lae, in Morobe Province - alleged web site at http://www.unitech.ac.pg
The four universities - two state-funded, two private - which were once colleges, were established recently after gaining government recognition. These are the
- University of Goroka (public, in the Eastern Highlands province - http://www.uog.ac.pg
- Divine Word University (private, run by the Catholic Church) in Madang province - http://www.dwu.ac.pg - and note their e-learning page at http://learn.dwupng.net (supported by Moodle)
- Vudal Agriculture University (public) in East New Britain province, now renamed to be Papua New Guinea University of Natural Resources and Environment - apparently with a minimal interim web site at http://universityofvudal.blogspot.com
- Pacific Adventist University (private, run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church) in the National Capital District - http://www.pau.ac.pg
Polytechnics in Papua New Guinea
There is no information on polytechnics.
Colleges in Papua New Guinea
There is no information on colleges.
Education reform
Schools
Post-secondary
Administration and finance
Schools
Post-secondary
Office of Higher Education
Higher Education is overseen by the Office of Higher Education. This was created by the Higher Education Act 1983 and is the administrative and coordinating agency of Higher Education in Papua New Guinea. The Office is located within the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology. Its mission is to develop a robust higher education sector that is responsive to the national development needs of Papua New Guinea.
Both the Office of Higher Education and the Ministry are housed on the 2nd Floor of Mutual Rumana in Port Moresby, the Capital of Papua New Guinea.
Quality assurance, inspection and accreditation
Schools
Post-secondary
Information society
PNGARNET (sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea_Academic_and_Research_Network)
The Papua New Guinea Academic and Research Network (PNGARNET) is a nonprofit organisation owned and operated by the Papua New Guinea Vice-Chancellors Committee. PNGARNET's stated mission is to expand the availability of cost-effective Internet services to the nation's universities and research centres. PNGARNET was launched in April 2008, and its initial membership consisted of four state-funded schools – University of Goroka, University of Papua New Guinea, University of Technology and Vudal University – plus the privately-owned Divine Word University and Pacific Adventist University and two government agencies, the National Research Institute and the National Agricultural Research Institute.
Among PNGARNET’s earliest projects has been the development of a computer satellite virtual local area network designed to increase Internet bandwidth to the nation's higher education institutions. The first installation coordinated by PNGARNET was a 3.7 metre satellite dish at the University of Goroka, which was designed to replace an older and slower dish while enabling the facility to facilitate full Internet research and communications services across Papua New Guinea and in connection with other nations.[4]
Papua New Guinea’s topography, with its rugged landforms and seismic activity, discouraged the installation of optical fibre as the main telecommunications medium for Internet connectivity. A microwave transmission was not pursued, since the technology requires line-of-sight between towers, which could only be constructed and maintained by PNG Telikom. Therefore, it was decided to use satellite transmission for PNGARNET’s connectivity.[3]
The PNGARNet system is made up of the participating institutions and a hub that is located in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong location was chosen due to the guarantee of uninterrupted electrical power and Internet connectivity and for its access to technology experts and supplies. PNGARNet rents its bandwidth on a geo-stationary orbiting satellite
ICT in education initiatives
Virtual initiatives in schools
Virtual initiatives in post-secondary education
None known as yet - but there are likely to be one or two.
The University of Papua New Guinea Open College (UPNG-OC) at http://www.upng.ac.pg/oc_home.html
There are also brief mentions of an "Institute of Distance and Continuing Education", oriented more to further education.
UPNG-OC was a case study for the 2009 COL publication Perspectives on Distance Education: Open Schooling in the 21st Century, Dominique A.M.X. Abrioux and Frances Ferreira, Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning, 2009, http://www.col.org/PublicationDocuments/pub_PS_OpenSchooling_web.pdf, August 2011.
Papua New Guinea University Of Technology
There is a description circa 2004 of "Open And Distance Learning Practice At The Papua New Guinea University Of Technology" in the paper http://www.col.org/pcf3/Papers/PDFs/Nyondo_Andrew.pdf
Lessons learnt
General lessons
Notable practices
References
- Regulatory Frameworks for Distance Education: A pilot study in the Southwest Pacific/South East Asia Region. Final Report, DEHub, the Australasian Council for Open and Distance Education (ACODE), the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) and the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), December 2011, http://www.icde.org/projects/regulatory_frameworks_for_distance_education/final_report, April 2012.
For OER policies and projects in Papua New Guinea see Papua New Guinea/OER