INTRODUCTION

The Government intervention in the development process as opposed to the market liberalization was influenced by Keynesian economics which emerged as a result of the Great Depression. Both Schools argued that lower income groups in the society benefit from the trickle down effect of the economic growth. The growing global poverty level proved the ineffectiveness of the Trickle Down theory and sought an alternative approach to the development process. Thus, the goal of development shifted from merely economic growth as an end to that of growth of people and enhancing the quality of human conditions (Aderinoye and Ojokheta, 2004). In 2000, all member states in the United Nations, adapted the Millennium Declaration which formed the basis for the formulation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These are: Eradication of Poverty and Hunger, Universal Primary Education, Gender Equity and Empowerment of Women, Reduction of Child Mortality, Improve Maternal Health, Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases, Environmental Sustainability and Global Partnership for Development.

The Medium Term Development Strategy (MTDS, 2005-2010) of the Government of Papua New Guinea (GoPNG) adopted the MDGs in establishing targets and indicators. The eight MDGs differ from overarching goals and objectives of the MTDS, such as good governance, export driven economy and rural development (Mawuli, Yala, Sanida and Kalop, 2005). The Technical Working Group that reviewed the MDGs in PNG concluded that it would be very difficult for PNG to achieve most of the demanding global targets by 2015.

MDGs TARGETS FOR PNG

MDGs targets for PNG compared to ambitious global targets need to be seen from the view point of its profile and development context. Physically PNG varies enormously with extremely rugged terrain mountainous, tropical forests, savannah grass plains, swamps and lagoons, and about 1400 islands to the east and northeast parts of the country. The population is 5.2 million (53 percent male and 47 percent female) with an annual growth rate of 2.6 per cent. There are more than 800 distinct languages. Approximately 45 percent of the population is literate and average life expectancy is 54 years. About 42 percent of the population is younger than 15 years indicating an enormous pressure on future demographic investment. Some 86 percent of the population lives in the rural areas, which are served by poor health, education, communication services. About 32 per cent of the population is below the poverty line. These indicators demonstrate the low level of development over the decades and a great deal of effort will be required to break this cycle of underdevelopment syndrome.

MDGs target for PNG as against global target

The review of MDGs that was conducted in 2004 for PNG tailored or customised all global targets and indicators for reflecting realities and priorities in the country because global targets associated with MDGs are thought to be over-ambitious. There appears to be pessimistic perceptions towards the achievement of tailored and customised targets of the MDGs for PNG, which are increasingly being paraded as unrealistic and as such not achievable. This is the outcome of focusing on conventional parameters and conditions of development within a `black box'. The MTDS as well as MDGs for PNG fall short of emphasizing education and learning opportunities as the important vehicles for development. A review report of MTDS stated that:

The MTDS has also failed to include research institutions, universities, colleges, and technical institutions, which are the knowledge bases and `think tanks' of the economy, in nearly all its objectives. Instead of relying heavily on expert knowledge from abroad, which may, in some cases be misleading, unrealistic, and inapplicable, the State should seriously engage its educational and research institutions in policy design, formulation, and implementation process (Mawuli, et al, 2005, p28).

“Education is the route to the full development of people as human beings with social, spiritual, intellectual, and cultural aspirations as well as with economic interests” (Daniel, 2004). While education plays a key role in achieving MDGs, it is also realised that traditional or conventional educational systems no longer suffice. There is a clear need for “business - unusual” approaches in order to create a knowledge society (Khan, 2005). Open and distance learning (ODL) has emerged as an “business unusual” approach in increasing education opportunities to reach the unreached. It has the potentiality to bring education to the geographically dispersed, both rural and urban people in PNG and to accelerate the achievement of MDGs.

Hilary Perraton (2000) organized distance learning experiences in developing countries into four categories: primary and secondary schooling, teacher training, higher education, and non-formal and adult education. Increasing access to formal education at school and higher education levels and creating a learning community both in rural and urban areas through non-formal education is needed for accelerating achievement of MDGs in PNG.

INCREASING ACCESS TO SCHOOL EDUCATION

High population growth, shortage of new and trained teachers, lack of maintaining and creating infrastructure are important factors for which universal primary education may not be achievable in PNG by 2015 (NDOE, 2002).

The National Education Plan (NEP, 2005-2014) (DOE, 2004) target is to achieve universal primary school enrolment rate of 85 per cent by 2015. The Plan recognised ODL as an alternative opportunity to pursue formal education. According to the `Education Plan', 30 per cent of primary level age group children will not have any place to enroll into, while increasing enrolment at primary level will increase pressure for new places at secondary level. NEP indicated that 25 per cent of the students are not offered places in Grade 9 and 10, and 10 per cent who are not offered paces in Grade 11 will enroll in the Flexible, Open and Distance Education College (FODEC).

It is interesting to note that projected emoluments of conventional school teacher will increase by 25 per cent during the plan period compared to nil increment for distance learning. While school subsidy will increase by 100 per cent, subsidy for distance education will be abolished. It appears from the conservative projection of student enrolment and shrinking financial support, the NEP did not appropriately recognized the potentiality of distance education in accelerating the achievement of UPE in 2015.

There is a need for shift in paradigm among educational planners and leaders to use ODL as a mainstream education system to increase access to education. While PNG is struggling to achieve universal primary education, it will be difficult to meet growing demand for secondary education by conventional means and building new schools with substantial donor funding (sustainability in question). A serious thought should be given to convert the FODEC into a large and diverse Open School like National Open School in India which has over a million children on it's rolls.

ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION

One of the major issues of crucial importance of development in PNG for achieving MDGs is the systematic weakness in management, and a lack of high level trained workforce to remain competitive at the time of trade liberalization (GoPNG and UNDP, 2004). The higher education is expected to cater for educating and training high quality human capital with requisite skills to command the premium in the national development agenda.

During the last decade higher education has been left in perilous state. The participation rate of tertiary age population has been less than 2 percent. On demand side about 15, 000 Grade 12 school leavers and equivalent will seek admission in higher education institutions (HEIs) by 2015. On the supply side, HEIs have a capacity of 4,000-5,000 annual in-take.

It is encouraging to note that the National Higher Education Plan (2000-2004) (OHE,2000) recognized the importance of ODL and suggested strategies for development of the ODL as an alternative system to increase access to higher education. However, over the years Government budgetary support for ODL has been nil while allocation for HEIs has been shrinking at an alarming rate. The gradual development of ODL in PNG has been taking place through the initiatives of individual institutions.

Again the challenge for ODL to become a mainstream higher education system in PNG is to have shift in paradigm of attaching importance to it as a vehicle to meet higher education needs. It is needless to prove the success of ODL in delivering mass higher education to millions in developing countries like Asia and Africa. Today 20 per cent of students in Indian higher education are in the national and state open universities with 1.4 million in Indira Gandhi Open University.

Major areas where the use of ODL can be incorporated as a vehicle to deliver higher education and training, which in turn will accelerate the achievement of MDGs are:

LEARNING FOR DEVELOPMENT

Whilst increasing access to primary, secondary and higher education as stated earlier is necessary, it is not sufficient to accelerate the achievements of MDGs in developing countries like PNG. About 86 per cent of its population lives in villages where literacy rate is less than the national average of 45 per cent with little opportunities for learning. Thus the aspirations for accelerating achievements of MDGs require four types of learning as summed up by Delor's report: learning to be, learning to know, learning to do, and learning to live together. People should become literate to learn more to free themselves from ignorance of not knowing themselves and the world around them. They should learn to acquire necessary skills and knowledge to address the issues of renewable energy generation, management of water and farming, sustainable agriculture, etc. and other things they like to do in the development process. People should learn law and citizen's rights, governance, local level participation, conflict resolution in families and groups, the rights of others, civic society to live together, and they should learn about health and well-being issues to avoid diseases and to keep healthy, everyday science, science and technology, to be productive person in development. Conventional methods of teaching are not up to the task, and Commonwealth nations, including PNG, have the opportunity to harness the potentiality of ODL to massive increase in human learning (Daniel, 2006).

The MTDS emphasizes the informal education program and promotion of economic activities in the informal sector to address the youth and young people problems. Accordingly a target was fixed to achieve youth literacy rate instead of increasing learning opportunities for general population. This is the outcome of approaching development from economic growth rather than growth of people, which will increase the number of poverty ridden population, reversing the achievements of MDGs targets.

PNG should learn from the successful experience of developing countries in using ODL as a vehicle for accelerating development through providing learning opportunities. For example, collaboration between Government of Italy, FAO and Network of Institutions Dedicated to Teaching Agricultural and Rural Development Policies for Latin America and the Caribbean (McLean, Gasperini and Rudgard, 2002). Initiatives of Commonwealth of Learning (COL) in Indian State of Tamil Nadu to form a consortium of the Agricultural University, the Open University, the Veterinary University, Engineering University including commercial banks to give farmers easier access to information and knowledge that could help them to increase their livelihoods. “Distance education has a huge role to play and there are many manifestations of open and distance learning (Daniel, 2006).

USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

Technology has helped the human civilization to improve the quantity and quality of services in human life while Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has revolutionized the flow in information and meeting the challenge of learning. E-learning in ODL has taken a multi-media approach combining mass media and electronic media. Use of mass or multimedia in ODL requires a reliable and cost effective communication vehicle. In PNG an inadequate and unreliable land line (69K), and in-accessibility to satellite communication has forced the ODL providers to rely heavily on print mode.

The monopoly of the use of satellite communication in one agency has been a critical impediment for the development of the ODL in PNG. Current debate concentrates on who to control the system rather than how best services could be provided to the wider community. The MTDS on ICT suggested ensuring a policy to reflect best practices and to explore options to subsidies cost of communication infrastructure but did not set any target. The Government is yet to formulate any effective policy for the use of ICT for education and training. Appropriate educational and information dissemination programs through easy access to ICT that can reach into every corner of the country, people can become aware of the need for a nationally coordinated and coherent response to the developmental challenges they face on a daily basis. Government immediate intervention is paramount to provide easy access to ICT for increasing access to education and providing learning opportunities to the people for accelerating the achievements of MDGs.

CONCLUSION

In concluding remarks, the MDGs Review Report stated that “the national target can only be achieved with proportionally higher increased benefits for those areas/subgroups of the population that are lagging behind in the development process”. A large proportion of the population is under 15 years who should be educated to become a productive force for development. The largest group of illiterate population in the rural areas should be provided learning opportunities to meaningfully participate in the development process, and ODL has proved to be the effective method of doing it.

The concept of ODL and its proven effectiveness to bring education and learning opportunities to the young and matured generation is yet to be grasped by policy makers, leaders, practitioners and policy implementers in PNG. Government intervention is required to use ODL as one of the main stream vehicle to accelerate the achievements of MDGs.