24 Aug 2016

University of PNG year to resume with tone of reconciliation

From Pacific Waves, 3:05 pm on 24 August 2016

Reconciliation is the focus for students at the University of Papua New Guinea who are preparing for the resumption of the academic year next week.

The UPNG's academic year had been cancelled after over six weeks of disruptions and unrest at the Waigani campus related to a mass boycott of classes by students in protest against the Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.

However, the UPNG recently decided to have classes start up again in September and, under a re-worked schedule, fit in both 2016 and 2017 academic years by November next year.

The SRC's Gerald Tulu Manu-Peni told Johnny Blades he is wary about a possible backlash by university management against student leaders.

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Students attend a rally at UPNG. Photo: UPNG4PNG

Transcript

GERALD TULU MANU-PENI: We student leaders now will come under the spotlight. From experience, the students leaders have always been the ones that got the axe at the end of the day. Even though we were fighting for what we believe is right, we always get the axe.

JOHNNY BLADES: Some of the students have lost in the management of the UPNG from what I understand, is that right?

GTMP: That's very affirmative, that's correct in every word that you spoke. The management of the university, everything they spoke to the media was just all rhetoric and hearsay. In fact they were correct in some parts, of a sense. But in other ways, they didn't come down to the student level to interact with the students, to gauge their views on what is the best direction forward. That is the reason why we ended up in such a situation. But students will go back to campus and on the Friday (2 September) the university council has put it as reconciliation day. So all of us students at this university, and especially student leaders that are implicated in this situation, all of us are putting our birth on that day. Reconciliation in Melanesian custom means that if you we aside all our differences whatsoever, the past is the past, it has already come and gone. We work to have a proper dialogue, and move towards something good that is a winning solution for all of us.

JB: And will there be enough time to finish the semester, will it be extended?

GTMP: The studies of this year have all been squeezed up. That is the whole reason why I have just a bit of doubt on the integrity of the academic programmes that we would go and complete in the following months at the university. How will those study programmes be on par with international standards that are practised all around the world. We don't want to be seen as half-baked graduates. We cannot have some mid-semester break, we cannot have holidays whatsoever. But we will still complete this 2016 academic year next year, around March or April. The majority of the students are very happy to return to class. I believe the whole SRC, since day one, it was not our intention for the situation to go such way. But to be honest, it's all politically motivated - every decision that is made by the university council has been dictated by the ones that we have been going against since day one, I can tell you, that's PNG politics for sure.