Papua New Guinea: Pagelio unveils K10b universal education plan

Submitted by TemoL on Wed, 06/24/2009 - 10:08

THE Department of Education will roll out a K10 billion plan starting next year aimed at ensuring all school-aged children are in school by the year 2018.

The plan, announced by Education secretary Dr Joseph Pagelio in Alotau yesterday, is ambitious as it is unclear where such a massive amount of money will come from.

The Australian government has announced its support and willingness to help during the recent PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum in Brisbane.

Suggestions on funding are being pooled at the week-long Senior Education Officers’ Conference which got under way at Cameron Secondary School in Alotau, Milne Bay province, yesterday.

One proposal would be to have a portion of proceeds from the LNG project invested in a revolving fund to fund this massive exercise, called the Universal Basic Education (UBE) initiative.

The economics behind this is to use profit from the extraction and sale of a non-renewal resource to fund manpower development, a renewable resource.

“Funding quality education for our children is an investment for the future from which the country will reap a lot of benefits,