Most viewed blog posts this month

Most read posts this month:

1- PNGBlogs Exclusive: “The Sevua Report
Mar 25, 2014
941 reads

2- The Australian: There’s a price to pay for our indebtedness to PNG...
Mar 24, 2014
896 reads

3- Times Higher Education: Papua New Guinea University of Technology’s exiled VC fights back
Mar 27, 2014
660 reads

4- PNG Edge: Dr Schram must return as Vice Chancellor: Bogan
Mar 11, 2014
494 reads

5- The National: PM must set uni on right path
Mar 7, 2014, 2 comments
446 reads

Papua New Guinea University of Technology’s exiled VC fights to return (Times Higher Education 27 March 2014)

by David Matthews 

March 27, 2014
original

(Times Higher Education is arguably the world's leading magazine on higher education with a readership of hundreds of thousands globally. Its twitter account has 108.000 followers and Facebook page over 7.000 followers. It also published the World University Rankings, and organised the World Academic Summit.

The most amazing UNITECH story is how staff organisations and students all united fought for the VC's return. This article brings home some of the realities of higher education in Papua New Guinea, of which audiences in Europe or USA are largely ignorant.

In December, when the interview was done, we were at the deepest point in the crisis, so now good news will follow, and good things will come from this type of mainstream media exposure. AS)

Students protest in support of Dutch-born university head Albert Schram, expelled by the government in 2013 Source: Ronnie Noan

Flying the flag for Schram: Unitech students march in protest to get their vice-chancellor reinstated after his sudden, unexplained deportation in February 2013

Albert Schram is a university leader in exile. He is the vice-chancellor of Papua New Guinea University of Technology (Unitech), but in February 2013 he was deported and has been forced to live in Australia ever since.

Schram has even been declared a “threat to national security” by the country’s former higher education minister.

Schram wants proper employment visa | PNG online news | PNG real time news | PNG Edge

Original: Schram wants proper employment visa | PNG online news | PNG real time news | PNG Edge
Sally Pokiton on Wed, 03/26/2014 - 16:21

The man in the middle of the whole Unitech saga says he wants a proper employment visa and not a business visa that prohibits employment.

The business visa to be issued to Dr Albert Schram means he will be in the country for a period of time and that type of visa will not allow him to carry out his duties as the vice chancellor of the university.

“I am insisting on a proper employment visa,” Schram told PNG Edge today.

UPNG students plan protest march against K3 billion loan - Education News PNG

Original: UPNG students plan protest march against K3 billion loan - Education News PNG
By Bernard Sinai on March 26, 2014




Image via PNG Edge

Students at country’s premier university, University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), are planning a protest march next week against the government’s move to acquire a K3 billion loan, PNG Edge reports.

Of Manus and megaphones (or how I learned to stop worrying and love a bit of M.A.D) | Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre

Original: Of Manus and megaphones (or how I learned to stop worrying and love a bit of M.A.D) | Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre

By Karl Claxton on March 24, 2014

Stephen Howes makes a strong case in Friday’s Australian that ‘there’s a price to pay (paywalled) for our indebtedness to Papua New Guinea’ for helping out with our Asylum-seeker obsession: he worries Canberra’s gratitude and anxiety hobbles our leverage in the relationship.

From Papua New Guinea Blogs: PNGBlogs Exclusive “The Sevua Report”

(So now it is finally out, what everybody familiar with UNITECH in Lae has known far at least 15 years. AS)

Original Papua New Guinea Blogs: PNGBlogs Exclusive “The Sevua Report”
Tuesday, March 25, 2014

By NATIONAL WHISTLE-BLOWER

Only Unitech’s students have the power to force a Commission of Inquiry into the Coverup of the Sevua Report and Banning of Dr Albert Schram.

Click here to view the recommendations of the Sevua Report.

The 2013 boycott by Unitech students should have alerted the O’Neill government that time was of the essence in resolving the impasse at Unitech and preventing further disruption. Judge Mark Sevua submitted the completed report to government in May. After a delay of about a month, Acting HERST Minister Don Polye submitted the Sevua report to NEC for endorsement. Further delay of two months passé before the NEC finally got around to endorsing the report. A further 6 months passed by without any signs from OHE of progress in implementing the report, nor of taking legal action to make it possible to implement the report. A recent letter from OHE described in a pngblogs article by another author indicated that an OHE committee itself recommended specific steps to get the ball rolling. These steps were then ignored, both by the OHE Director General as well as by HERST Minister Arore.

PM Speaks On National Issues - EM TV

Original: PM Speaks On National Issues - EM TV
on Monday, 24 March 2014. Posted in News
BY NEVILLE CHOI, EMTV – PORT MORESBY

In the past month or two, there have been a wide range of national issues that have challenged the determination of the O’Neill-Dion government.

Changes in ministerial portfolio heads, the boycott and standoff by students at the University of Technology, and the PNG Power saga, have all taken up the public’s time, and tested the government.