By BETTY GABRIEL WAKIA - original post on PNG Attitude
Betty Wakia
TIANJIN - Papua New Guinea’s economic problems hit pretty hard in 2017 and 2018 will be a tough year for families as prices have already increased on more than 900 household items already.
The rise in food prices has adversely affected the livelihood of socially vulnerable groups, especially for poorer people because their diets usually rely on items that are becoming more expensive such as rice, tinned fish, flour and cooking oil.
What also makes life worse for socially disadvantaged groups is the significant increase in fuel prices.
Every kina spent on increased prices for necessities is a kina that can’t be spent on educational and other services. So PNG is now confronted with an economic crisis which will have a dramatic effect on income, unemployment and lifestyle.
For households from lower income groups which have young children, education constitutes a significant part of consumption. Simply to survive, many families will be forced to pull their children out of school and send them to work.
And female students are more likely to drop out, mainly affecting rural areas where boys are typically given more opportunities than girls.
Difficult economic conditions have also had a large impact on higher education. The government should do away with the current policy and re-introduce the old system where it paid fees for students going to colleges and universities. There needs to be improvement in teachers’ salaries and the quality of teaching and learning.
The Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology owed institutions K7 million in outstanding government scholarship funds for 2017. This was one reason why the country’s leading universities like UPNG and Unitech tripled compulsory tuition fees.
Perhaps, at times like this, higher education institutions should be urged to generate their own revenue instead of relying solely on government.
Some colleges and universities have resorted to bank loans to support capital construction costs, resulting in high levels of debt. Such pressures make it difficult to focus on teaching and research thus compromising the quality of higher education. And it’s a vicious circle, low quality contributing to the high level of graduate unemployment.
Higher education is a major driving force for development in PNG, even though in recent years with the rapid increase in number of graduates, the job market has struggled to keep up with their job expectations.
The white-collar jobs just aren’t there.
They have a longer-term pay-off, but universities are a vital part of our economic infrastructure - a powerful vehicle of human development that helps engender economic, social and political stability.
The PNG government should realise that the development of human capital, spending on research and cultivating an entrepreneurial culture are not so much costs as investments in a better future.
To produce the range of services required to fulfill society’s needs, universities and government need to focus on methods to improve financing and accountability.
The 2018 academic year will be tough for parents and students. Those children of subsistence farmers and low wage earners will struggle to pay tuition fees.
Looks like they will attend secondary education and return to their villages while rich kids will get the benefit of colleges and universities now – and right through their future careers.
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