Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Papua New Guinea students make international appeal for universal education and gender equality

Picture captions: 1. Port Moresby Grammar School headgirl Alida Gubag discussing Millenium Development Goals (MDG) issues with New Zealand students during a PNG/New Zealand school video conference at the World Bank's PNG Office. The video conference last Friday involving students from the Port Moresby Grammar School and St Josephs International College was organised by the British High Commission. 2.  The Port Moresby Grammar School and St Josephs International College students discussing Millenium Development Goals (MDG) issues with New Zealand students during a PNG/New Zealand school video conference at the World Bank's PNG Office. The video conference last Friday involved students from the Port Moresby Grammar School and St Josephs International College and was organised by the British High Commission.

A group of Papua New Guinea students have appealed to the international community to give priority to universal education and gender equality.

The Port Moresby Grammar School and St Josephs International College students made the appeal last Friday at the end of an hour-long video conference discussion on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with peers from schools in Wellington, New Zealand.

“The first is we’d like gender equality to be promoted and second is for the quality of education in all schools to be improved. We want the international community to do something to better facilitate the level of education to enable developing countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals (targets in 2015),” said students Freesia Wavine and Ferdinand Lambo on behalf of their PNG colleagues.

Their New Zealand peers passed on their concerns to the 300 regional and international leaders who attended the March 20-21 MDG symposium at Wellington’s Victoria University.

The UK Minister for the Pacific Gillian Merron and PNG’s sole woman MP and Community Development Minister Dame Carol Kidu attended and participated in the symposium.

The students’ discussions centered on the MDGs, especially MDG 2 on “achieving universal primary education” with the questions and subsequent discussions focusing on education in PNG, HIV/AIDS and violence against women.

Acting British High Commissioner to PNG, Colin Glass, said he hoped the students had fun and would take away with them the importance of the MDGs. 

The PNG students, who were made MDG Ambassadors and presented certificates of participation, thanked the British High Commission in both Port Moresby and Wellington for organising the video conference.

The students’ lively discussion concluded with the PNG side singing the National Anthem and their New Zealand peers reciprocating with their rendition of the Haka.

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