In a clear signal of commitment to long-term national development, the Minister for Planning and District Development, Paul Tiensten, has identified higher and technical education as central to putting Papua New Guinea (PNG) on a path toward middle-income status by 2030, The National reports.
Addressing students and staff at the official opening of the academic year at Pacific Adventist University, Tiensten emphasized that the upcoming medium-term development plan (MTDP 2011-15) — aligned with the national strategic document PNG Vision 2050 — hinges significantly on building a “world class tertiary education sector”.
“We desire over the medium term to improve the quality of education and to produce 52,000 graduates,” he said, stressing that such outputs are crucial for economic transformation.
Tiensten pointed to projected economic benefits: an additional K 464 million in GDP and K 144 million in tax revenues by 2015, as well as nearly 30,000 new jobs, assuming successful roll-out of higher education initiatives.
He described Pacific Adventist University as a “key institute” in reaching these targets and underlined the broader value of higher and technical education in enabling skills, productivity and innovation — aligning with PNG’s goal of raising living standards, lifting labor participation and supporting industrial diversification.
Implications & Challenges
While the Minister’s vision sets a clear direction, the scale of the task remains significant: upgrading infrastructure, ensuring academic quality, expanding access especially in remote regions and aligning graduates’ skills with labor market needs all pose challenges. The success of the MTDP will equally depend on execution, funding, institutional capacity and effective governance.
As PNG embarks on this ambitious agenda, education stakeholders, policymakers and development partners will need to coordinate closely to translate the targets into tangible outcomes for students and for the national economy.