A big week for the ANU-UPNG partnership

The past week was a particularly busy one for the ANU-UPNG partnership, with the University of Papua New Guinea hosting diplomatic visits, workshops, guest lectures as well as the annual economics student-lecturer forum.

His Excellency Bruce Davis, Australia’s High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, visited UPNG meeting staff from the School of Business and Public Policy and their Australian counterparts from ANU, including the Vice-Chancellor Albert Mellam, Dean of the School of Business Lekshmi Pillai and Director of the Development Policy Centre at ANU, Stephen Howes.

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Prof. Lekshmi Pillai, Prof. Stephen Howes, Dr. Manoj Pandey (ANU) meet with High Commissioner Bruce Davis.

Three ANU academics, Colin Wiltshire, Tara Davda, and Grant Walton, carried out a week of collaborative research, workshops and a guest lecture, with UPNG academics Denise Lokinap and Peter Kanaparo from the School of Business and Public Policy. The combined team travelled together to Central Province to conduct the pilot stage of a qualitative study into education and health service provision. With the pilot fieldwork completed successfully the team is now planning to visit two further provinces in the coming months.

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Dr Grant Walton lectures to public policy students

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Colin Wiltshire and Denise Lokinap talk with school teachers in Abau, Central Province

The Economics Students Society held its annual student-lecturer forum for 2016. The event was attended by economics students from all year levels and allowed for students to speak with lecturers in a convivial environment. The event was a success with discussions lasting till 10pm when the event finished. The forum was a good way for students and lecturers to converse in an environment outside the normal academic routine, and with faculty levels the strongest they have been for a number of years, it showcased the increasing sense of camaraderie and high morale felt within the division of economics after several years of struggling to fill lecturing roles.

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Second year students and Economics division lecturers.

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Kelly Samof, Jamie Mazi and Martha Waim take a ‘selfie’ with Dr. Manoj Pandey.

The Crawford ANU – SBPP UPNG partnership is funded under the Pacific Leadership Governance Precinct by the Australian aid program. Rohan Fox is the Partnership Coordinator.

 

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Rohan Fox

Rohan Fox was a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre. He lectured in the economics program at the University of Papua New Guinea in 2015, 2016 and 2020.

3 Comments

  • Such programs are termed as sustainable academic development in which impact information are disseminated through learning and its benefits are indeed unspeakable!

  • Good to see old UPNG comes to light again after the lost of staff and low moral that hit the institution for several years. Credit must go to AusAid for providing the funding and ANU for facilitating the exchanges and the building of capacity once more. UPNG in its hay days was a PNG premium university and I am hopeful the partnership between ANU and UPNG will continue. However, AusAid could extend this honour to include other universities through interactive learning which may include seminars, post graduate research presentations and online tutorials from the UPNG Waigani campus. This will have a wider impact on PNGs higher learning institutions, and form networks that will last a life-time such as done in New Zealand with all major universities and connecting with with USP-Fiji and the National University of Samoa. Just a food for thought.

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