The perception that Papua New Guinea’s standard of Journalism is dropping was part of discussions during the three days of Inquiry into the role and impact of Media In Papua New Guinea, the inquiry facilitated by the Parliamentary Committee on Communications unearthed an interesting predicament that faces the Mainstream Media Industry in Papua New Guinea.
The perception that there is a drop in the standard of journalism and the quality of journalists in recent years has been attributed to many factors.
During the inquiry three participants mentioned that the low standards of education at the secondary school level is a contributing factor toward the low output at the university level.
President of the Media Council of Papua New Guinea and seasoned journalist, Neville Choi, said many media houses have to retrain graduates because they are not grasping the basics that lead to a promising career in journalism.
Poor grammar and writing skills have been a clear indication of the drop in the level of journalism, Universities have argued that they are research institutions and are not responsible for basic English and grammar.
Independent Journalist and renowned Papua New Guinean Journalist, Scott Waide called for more funding to be put into the education system to improve the facilities to foster better teaching and learning.
Scott Waide said he had in previous years trained a lot of journalists and cameramen, he also saw that it was easier to recruit those outside of the school of journalism and train them to be journalists.
Professor Cecilia Nembou, Vice Chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea concurred with shared statements on the drop in education standards in both the University and the Secondary school system.
Professor Nembou mentioned that as a university, they require the best lecturers, however, that costs money.
She says academic staff of the university should not be viewed as public servants and be limited to a public servants pay ceiling.
She added that Universities, especially Government run institutions should be given the freedom to set their own salary packages to lure qualified lecturers to improve the standards.
She highlighted that salary packages for academics was really poor, and that it was the same at the secondary school level where teachers are being paid poorly as well.
Scott Waide also emphasized the need for education geared towards utilizing recent and trending innovations in Technology, this will in turn help students to be more efficient and innovative to help improve workflow and maximum output.
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