By STANLEY PUNDIYE - PNG Attitude
PORT MORESBY - I am not close to you to speak these words directly, so I make this humble request through PNG Attitude.
An innocent man was accused by power-hungry people who had made the University of Technology their cash cow before Dr Albert Schram’s term as vice-chancellor.
Dr Schram was accused on baseless grounds and the purpose of accusing him was to make Unitech a cash cow once again after he had gone.
Last year he was gone and the evil won.
I fought for change a student at Unitech from 2011 to 2014. The change I wanted to see slowly flowed in from Dr Schram’s arrival in 2013 and beyond.
The change included 13 major infrastructure projects on campus, restoring the reputation of the university internationally, signing 23 cooperation agreements, sending 77 Papua New Guineans abroad for the training (27 for doctoral programs) and setting up a satellite campus in Simbu.
All this change took place when the university faced a terrible financial crisis. This man, in difficult conditions, managed to get a lot done to help Papua New Guineans.
Without any strong evidence, the innocent man was charged with not having a real doctorate even after he produced a certified copy of the document from the European university.
The Department of Higher Education purposefully allowed confusion to prevail even after an intensive verification process and after speaking to the European university and communicating with its professor members. The Department came up with nothing against him.
Even after seeing his book based on his doctoral thesis from 1994 and published by the well-known Cambridge University Press in 1997, they closed their eyes and turned their back.
And they continue to suppress the innocent man who wanted to shape the brains and leaders of the next generations of this beautiful country.
Even after having heard the judge, they continue to track him and after being arrested on a trumped up charge he left the country without many toea in his pocket.
Let me tell you the judge’s words:
“In spite of this overwhelming evidence [presented by Dr Schram], Mr Saulep continues to dispute the authenticity of the applicant’s doctorate degree.
“I find this ridiculous and difficult to fathom especially when neither he [Mr Saulep] nor the police are in receipt of evidence from the European University Institute in Florence Italy, confirming their allegations and suspicions.“The current charge, with respect, lacks the primary evidence to prove the elements of falsity. Whether they will have such evidence by 12 june 2018 [the next hearing] is anyone’s guess. The reality is that they have failed to do so when the allegations were raised in 2012.”
This happened during prime minister O’Neill’s term.
Now, Hon James Marape, we kindly ask you to bring back an innocent man who struggled to shape the students of PNG who are the backbone of this country.
The students of PNG deserve a better education.
They deserve better infrastructure at universities.
They deserve to compete with overseas students.
They deserve as be ranked at the top.
They deserve to be thinkers and not robots.
They deserve such people as Dr Schram to light the road to success.
And Dr Schram deserves to be in PNG to carry on his good work.
True. Dr. Schram should be brought back to Unitech.
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