THE Papua New Guinea Government is announcing policies without investing in complementary education to back them, a student leader says.
Speaking from behind Kokopo police cells, University of Natural Resources and Environment (UNRE) student president, Israel Yafai said the Government had turned a blind eye on students’ recent protests which targeted improvement to course content and learning and ancillary services facilities at the university at the heart of the Government’s core policies.
Yafai said it was hypocritical for the Government to talk about promoting sustainable and renewable agriculture, fisheries, forestry without developing the future manpower to realise these policies.
He said the Government had introduced environment studies to understand issues like the global warming phenomenon and to study ways to mitigate climate change threats to people’s livelihoods yet it is not interested in developing proper course content and a conducive learning environment at UNRE.
Yafai said: “The Government’s Vision 2050, Pillar 7 and current policies on agriculture, fisheries, forestry and climate change hinge on students from UNRE. If the Government does not improve the courses and learning environment of students at this university, where will it draw its future manpower from to implement its policies?
“There are reasons why this is happening. These students would not boycott unnecessarily. There is manipulation, greed, lack of transparency and other factors that birthed corruption in this institution, causing delays and stops in terms of proper developments and progress.
“The same old buildings renovated, no new and better buildings for learning, old scientific equipment with few new ones, charging students extra fees. UNRE has so much potential and yet the leadership has been delaying and stopping the institution from reaching great heights.
“The government has always said that ‘agriculture’ is the backbone of PNG and that they will support it by making this sector stand out in order to build the economy and develop the nation. What better way to stand by their word than fix the very institution that is at the front line of agriculture – PNGUNRE!