The Sunday Bulletin Features

 Treasurer Don Polye and his host at the University of Goroka education conference where he stressed the need to cultivate a savings culture

Education conference a success in Goroka

THE 2013 National Education Conference ended on a high note at the University of Goroka with participants unanimously agreeing for the establishment of a national curriculum assessment and authority (NCAMA).

The conference theme “Calibrate Education for my future’ is a major attempt to reform the education sector to deliver on the demands of the Government expressed through the Vision 2050.

Apart from the endorsement of NCAMA by participants including policy-makers, implementers, especially teachers and academics, the conference endorsed recommendations of the recent Madang Small Medium Enterprise (SME) for business education to be included in the school curriculum.

Treasurer Don Polye, who is acting Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology, in his opening remarks stressed the need to cultivate a savings culture through sound financial education that will spur economic growth.

He said Papua New Guineans lacked basic financial management skills that led to mismanagement of finance from the family unit level to high public and private sectors.

Polye called for the introduction of financial management in the school curriculum and committed to take up the recommendations of the conference to the National Executive Council (NEC).

The conference holistically calibrated and recalibrated the education sector taking on board various issues confronting the current system in light of the Government’s determination to deliver quality education.

The meeting was jointly sponsored by the Prime Minister’s Department through the Office of Vision 2050, the Office of Higher Education, Department of Education and the University of Goroka.

It is part of the initial stages of implementing strategies toward the achievement of vision 2050, the first five years of the 50 years are the years of calibration that started in 2011 to 2015 for vision 2050.

In 2010 was the first year that the vision became operational for the alignment of departments and state-owned bodies.

Although 2011 was the first year of implementation it did not eventuate due to lack of funding. However, when the Peter O’Neill-led government came into place later that year, the funding was made available through a shift in the budget strategy focusing on the sub-national levels as desired by vision 2050.

The Goroka conference is partly incompliance of the Morobe communiqué in 2009, however, the actual allocation of the fund was done this year.