Member for Yangoru-Saussia, Richard Maru has a dream of exporting human capital from his district because there are no large income generating resources such as minerals and large commercial viable commodities.
This dream has come to fruition in the delivery of educational infrastructure in all the LLGs of the district especially during this time of parliament.
The cream of it all is the Yangoru School of Excellence, which was opened recently by the Deputy Australian High Commissioner, Dr. Joanne Loundes.
People of Yangoru-Saussia gathered to see the opening of the gateway to opportunities – Yangoru School of Excellence. It was a moment of achievement for Maru.
“We want to have quality education not just the quantity,” said Maru.
He explained that the former government’s promise to deliver, when he was planning minister he changed the policy and when I became planning minister, I had a good look at my own district.
Maru said out of the seven high schools in the district, 1000 students were passing out of grade 12 every year but less than 10 were making it to universities.
“Because we didn’t invest in quality. We were investing in quantity. Less than 10 students from the entire Yangoru-Saussia district. Less than 1 percent is a very poor result by any standard,” he said.
The MP sought the assistance from former Australian High Commission, Bruce Davis to in establishing a School of Excellence in the district.
“I thank that great man for the foresight and the vision to partner my dream, initially as a pilot project for our district and subject to success. We want to roll it out to all the rural districts of PNG where the academic results are very, very poor.”
After negotiations a K18 million was granted by the Australian government for the project of a new school to start in 2019 and is a success.
“We have gone from less than 10 to over 24, with 21 from Kubalia. This is a 200 percent improvement, only because the School of Excellence concept was introduced, thanks to the Australian government.