Rural areas

Bisiatabu Primary School, is Papua New Guinea’s first SDA church established school, and is nestled high on the mountains of Central Province’s Sogeri plateau.

The School was established in the late 50’s and 60’s after the war and similar to remote schools around the country comes with its own fair share of challenges.

Headmaster, Roger Zega expressed concerns that the school, although having a decent population of 231 students starting from elementary to grade 8; it is dire need for teaching staff.

He said health workers have enough training and knowledge but their commitment to work is very poor.

O’Neill added that only a few were working in challenging long hours to try and fill in the gap and serve our people especially in remote areas.

He also called on the medical board to review their structures and allow the government to bring in overseas doctors who are willing to serve the rural people.

“This is not to undermine the qualifications of our health workers but to try and bring health services to our remote areas,” he said.

A new joint report by the Bank of Papua New Guinea and World Bank has revealed differences between how rural and urban Papua New Guineans are managing their money and how they access financial services.

The report is calling for improvements in expanding financial services, such as banking and insurance services to rural areas and to women in general.

The report also highlighted the need to develop targeted financial education programs.