OCEANIA/PAPUA NEW GUINEA - Investing in youth education is vital: the Church is at the forefront

Port Moresby (Agenzia Fides) - Education and the development of children and youth are the best investments a country can make to improve the progress of its future generation. This was the highlight of the meeting, held in recent days in Waigani, which brought together various social and religious bodies, organizations and institutes involved in the education service, including Christian ones of different denominations.
"Education is important to have good citizens and to achieve this result greater investments are needed on young people", said Dr. Uke Kombre, Education secretary, which highlighted the role of women. "We need to mobilize and consolidate all the departments supporting education to be able to strengthen future generations of the country", Kombre insisted.
"Whoever has children always wants the best for them, we do not just want them to survive but grow and give a proactive contribution to society", said Mcloughlin, UNICEF representative in Papua New Guinea, one of the speakers at the seminar.
The approximately one hundred people who came to the meeting, all persons involved in various activities at the service and in the field of education, were presented with a work carried out by the 27 students of the St. Anne elementary school who, through a dynamic presentation, had the opportunity to show their skills.
Christian leaders reaffirmed that fruitful collaboration between the State and the Church in the education sector is necessary, in which the Christian community contributes enormously to the common good. There are numerous institutions managed by the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church, which give a fundamental contribution to society. The illiteracy rate is still very high in Papua New Guinea, and affects over 35% of the population. Christian churches today manage 70% of the education given in the country (the Catholic Church has over 3,000 schools) and their contribution has always been widely recognized. (AP) (Agenzia Fides, 10/10/2019)

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