An appraisal of "The educational recommendations of the World Bank Mission Report on Papua New Guinea, 1964-74&quot

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Melbourne, 1980It is difficult to generalize about a varied and fragmented country like Papua New Guinea, with its varied and fragmented population. This large island with its forbidding terrain, tropical climate and luxuriant flora have combined to make it a retreat for successive and often hostile primitive groups. Despite all of this, of necessity, one is forced to generalize about both the country and its inhabitants, and thus largely ignore the above complexities. Consequently this thesis examines in a global manner the enormously difficult task of bringing Western-education to approximately two million indigenous New Guineans as part of an economic plan that was aimed at developing the country in the mid 1960's. In fact the explicit purpose of the thesis is to appraise the educational recommendations of the World Bank Mission's Report on Papua New Guinea in 1964, and as they related to the ensuing decade. As a prelude to this, and largely to provide the historical perspective in which the World Bank made its report, a great deal of background data on political and educational developments in New Guinea is included. Then the explicit educational recommendations of the Mission are highlighted using a sectoral approach. Finally the apparent outcomes are examined, and the educational achievements of the early 1970's are contrasted with the planned projections made by the Mission in 1964. A further aspect that should add to the validity of the appraisal of the World Bank Mission's recommendations, is a critique on the overall nature and basis of the Report. Thus although it is conceded that the World Bank's Report was primarily the result of an economic mission it is also argued that its plan for development provided vital direction and impetus to education in Papua New Guinea. Now despite the relatively naive economic thinking that surrounded the World Bank in the 1960's the Mission's report was a fundamental planning document that recognised that the education system required a complete restructuring to develop mid and higher level manpower to facilitate the growth process. As such the World Bank Report can be deemed to have been a most significant catalytic influence that was of vital evolving importance to Papua and New Guinea's development, especially from 1964 to 1968 and probably until the early 1970's