National Research Institute

Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been implementing the Tuition Fee Free (TFF) policy with the aim of providing all school-aged children the opportunity to have access to education.

While quality education in early learning is paramount for a child’s progression into the future that is missing in some schools in the country.

The National Research Institute today released its Discussion Paper No. 209 titled “Assessment of challenges that primary schools face in providing quality education: Evidence from East Sepik and Morobe Provinces, Papua New Guinea”.

The two institutions, after signing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) two months ago, started the partnership with Prof Shamsul Akanda, Dean of Postgraduate School, Unitech, hosting a seminar recently held at the PNG NRI Campus in Port Moresby.

NRI Director Dr Osbourne Sanida, in his opening remarks, said: We achieve more if we work together than if we work in isolation”.

They also recommend that that these steps to be documented and signed off so that the people are clear about how the outcome will be implemented before the vote.

PNG National Research Institute (NRI) Director, Dr Osborne Sanida, said this during the recent launching of the report.

The two research reports are the latest entries of seven reports prepared by the NRI Bougainville Referendum Project as part of the preparation of the Bougainville Referendum in 2019.

The two reports, launched last Thursday, look at autonomy from two perspectives: Political and Fiscal Autonomy.

The first around political autonomy was undertaken by a team of three researchers from EURAC.

The authors responded to the questions posed in the terms of reference. The questions were;

• What is autonomy?

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the two yesterday for NRI to assist with technical topics in the review through seminars.

NRI will assist CLRC in research and analysis on technical topics of the review’s 13 terms of reference, and in the end, put together an independent report to CLRC. 

NRI will host a series of seminars that will look at four main technical topics: Electoral boundaries which have remained the same since Independence; voter registration and electoral rolls; special interest groups in women and the management and conduct of polls.

Team Leader of National Research Institute’s study into the Bougainville Referendum, Dr Thomas Webster, highlighted this during his research presentation to students at the University of Papua New Guinea.

He emphasised the importance of Bougainvilleans having access to vital information that will help them make an informed decision when the Referendum is held.

He said people need to make an educated choice and be able to live with the outcome, even if the outcome is difficult.

This predominantly encompasses the modelling aspect of development planning and in liaison with the National Research Institute, which would shed light on the main features on the reality of the economy and planning.

The model is narrowed down specifically to economic modelling – a mathematical representation of the linkages between selected elements of the economy.

Director for NRI, Dr. Osborne Sanida, said: “The main role of this conference will be to discuss issues that are relevant to APEC and how problems in the different APEC economies can be addressed.”

This ASCC Conference is made up of the different APEC study centres in the 21 APEC economies.

Papua New Guinea is the last remaining APEC economy to be part of the APEC Study Centre Consortium, which is a great achievement for PNG and also for the National Research Institute, who will be house the study centre.

The National Research Institute program leader of property development, Dr Eugene Ezebilo, in an interview with Loop PNG said the public sector in the country is not effective enough to address the issue of housing.

“So if the private sector is allowed to drive the housing sector, then we’ll have a lot of improvements,” reiterated Dr Ezebilo.

He said in other parts of the world, the new paradigm is what is referred to as “an enabling approach.”