Information Paralysis in PNG

Another Steven Winduo article published in The National newspaper on August 17th, 2009. The column where this article first appeared is Steven's Window on page 5 of the newspaper.

Information paralysis begins when students and teachers have no access to library facilities or the closest library. The educational institutions acknowledge this problem, but are limited in their capacity to provide a library to serve the students as well as the general public. The small and limited capacities of public libraries cannot serve the national demands of the population needing specialized and technical information and knowledge. Existing public libraries do not even have the technological edge to provide online searches and access to relevant technical information needed by special groups of users.

The non-existence of public libraries and the lack of library services in our country make learning and access to information for Papua New Guineans one-hell-of an experience. Over the years I have shared similar sentiments with advocates of library services like Oseah Philemon and the Governor General, Sir Paulias Matane, that our government must fund school libraries and public libraries. Serious commitment to the development of libraries and expansion of library and information services to the people is needed. Recent announcement on making school libraries a compulsory requirement for all schools is refreshing, but seeing it through is the difficult part.

A nation without libraries and information resources that libraries provide is a nation that struggles to make sense of the changing global environment. In bookshelves of school libraries and public libraries there are no new titles or the kinds of titles someone needs for specific purposes. Journals and electronic search and research facilities are needed in these libraries. Book related gatherings and activities are the public services of libraries.

Existing school and public libraries have no funding and cannot afford to order new books. The same old response is heard over and over again. The cost of buying books from overseas publishers is astronomical. This is a story that is all too familiar to the dedicated library and information personnel throughout the country. Some of our urban schools are still yet to build school libraries.

For example, the Waigani Primary School, a prime school in the city, build on the grounds of the University of Papua New Guinea, where my children and the children of other top public servants attend school adorns the school ground. Instead a section of a building that houses the administration is converted to a library. So much for a city school with a room labelled library, but on inspection one would see how unfriendly, disorganized, and frightening such a place is for our children.

If we are concerned about improving the quality and standard of education of our children through the pursuit of knowledge in published forms such as books, and now-a-days in electronic forms, we need to make the decision to improve the standard of our existing libraries by building standard libraries in our schools where students can go to discover the magic of knowledge.

I may sound contrite to some for expressing my views about this issue, but as someone who is both a learner of new knowledge and a scholar who has to research, teach, and write about Papua New Guinea I have had the good fortune of accessing relevant and up-to-date information from different libraries around the world. Others have excellent collections of books and publications about Papua New Guinea, making them become the self-appointed custodians of knowledge of PNG.

I acknowledge that one or two provinces have committed themselves to building a new or redeveloping an existing public library. Other provinces need to be persuaded into undertaking similar commitments. In my recent visit to Wewak I was shocked to see the old Wewak public library is now converted to the District Treasury Office. I appeal to those in the know and who control the funds to Wewak and the East Sepik Province to build a new Wewak Public Library as a repository of knowledge and restore the history of the province, but also as the site of knowledge gathering, research, education, and reading pleasures of the beneficiaries.

While our schools remain the primary providers of library and information services, school administrators and boards, need to give priority to the establishment or development of a school library. Giving the same old excuses of insufficient funding is counterproductive. Apart from setting aside annual funds, coordinating of activities and fundraising activities for a school library, and using part of the project fee for building a school library, school boards and administrators need to seek out help of the community.

I make this point as a parent with children attending the Waigani Primary School in the nation’s capital. I have not seen a building that is called a school library or heard from the School Board about activities to raise funds for building a school library. I have not even seen my children bring home a book borrowed from their school library. There is no commitment from the school board to do so. As far as my kids have been in this school nothing good has come out of this school, not to mention the complete disregard for a parents and citizens meeting or even voted for new board members. A certain individual from that school is rumoured to have used the school money to buy a CRV four doors. The same individual abused, risked to thugs, and wrecked the previous school bus. The children have no school bus or vehicle to transport them during school related activities. I paid my children’s project fees for the school to build a school library or a science laboratory to enhance their learning. I hope someone in authority will investigate this non-transparent and irresponsible practice.

Our primary schools, secondary schools, and major centres need public libraries. The government need to fund the establishment of public libraries with the aim of improving the provision of services and making accessibility to information and knowledge of the world easier to our people. Without continuous support from the government our libraries and schools will remain weakened by a system of information paralysis.

Impoverished Reading Culture

The first of several articles on reading culture, books, libraries, literacy, cultural knowledge, indigenous knowledge system, folklore, education, media literacy and technology, film documentaries, writing, and publishing in Papua New Guinea by Steven Edmund Winduo, published in The National newspaper of Papua New Guinea under the column Steven's Window.


People are having a lot of problems with reading. I observed that students at the University of Papua New Guinea are not carrying textbooks around to read. Students walk in and out of lecture rooms without any textbooks. I see them carrying a rolled up writing pad, a folded exercise book, or their bilums, baskets, and bags. Most of them don’t seem to care whether they carry a textbook. They are happy without textbooks. I see them gather in small groups talking and laughing. I see them sitting around the forum, but without reading any books. I see them walking around holding hands or talking on their cell phones. It is odd for university students to fill the campus without having texts books in their possession.

I have traveled and lived in many international university campuses where students are seen buried in their textbooks, or rushing off to their classes with textbooks under their arms, in their bags, or next to them in coffee shops, cafeterias, and even under a shady tree. Students walk in and out of libraries with many books. Bookshops are filled with students buying textbooks, supplementary texts, and even books of general interest. The busiest places on a campus are the library, the bookshop, and the cafeterias. Books are everywhere. They are the inseparable gear of a student on campus.

I decided to take it on myself to tell my class one day about my observation. I was teaching a course on literature ad politics. I had about 60 students registered for the course. I began my course with some theoretical and conceptual frameworks influenced largely from the Marxist school of thought. In my first lecture I noticed the students were not with me. The key thinkers such as Karl Marx, Hegel, Emmanuel Kant, Theodore Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, Jean Paul Sartre, Ferdinand Saussure, Frederic Jameson, Stuart Hall, or Raymond Williams were not their cup of tea. For two weeks I talked to students attending my class without textbooks or any supplementary texts.

I am convinced photocopying lecture notes costs a lot of money. I believe lecturers should not photocopy lecture notes, books, or journal chapters to give to their students. Students should not be spoon-fed or have their tuition subsidized by the university. Students should pay for their lecture notes, readings, and textbooks. Every year staff at in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, for example, run down the poor photocopy machine several times a year because of heavy photocopying load, let alone running high the bills for photocopying. Students must buy their photocopies whether lecture notes, journal chapters, or textbook chapters. Students are led into believing that they can attend lectures without buying their own textbooks because lecturers will give free handouts, lecture notes, and readings. This is a false sense of responsible learning.

I raised the awareness of this poor learning attitude in class one day. Soon after that lecture three quarters of the students dropped out of my course. How could students understand theoretical and abstract ideas only from a lecturer’s notes? A lecturer is not the gospel truth of the subject he or she teaches. A lecturer guides the young raw minds inexperienced in the path of knowledge to achieve a competence sufficient enough for national duty after graduation. Students are expected to read beyond the readings set by a lecturer. Lectures are only understood when students have read the required readings and other relevant texts before they attend class. Instead, students attend classes expecting a lecturer to spoon-feed them everything. Such learning expectations do nothing more than making a class of lazy students pontificating a lecturer as the only source of knowledge.

Somewhere along the line something went wrong. I know that the curriculum and syllabuses are carefully designed and published to effectively develop the reading and learning skills of students. If these are taught and delivered properly students should be properly equipped with reading and writing skills by the time they get to the university. With teachers who are good at teaching reading and writing skills their students too benefit from the skills and confidence of the teacher. With teachers struggling to deliver the right skills of reading and writing students too fumble and stumble.

The problems of reading among university students are like a cancerous growth within our young society. We should not allow it to grow or gain footing in our education system and learning environment. Our goal should be to end such poor attitudes among university students. It should not only be the responsibility of university lecturers. It should be everyone’s responsibility to encourage and instill in our young people’s minds the values of reading and making books become an important part of growing up and developing successful foundations to reach one’s dreams.

I shared this observation with the Governor General of Papua New Guinea Grand Chief Sir Paulias Matane at the Government House one day. He was shocked to hear that our university students are not reading or buying textbooks and carrying them around in traditional scholastic fashion. Shock it was to him because His Excellency is both an avid reader and writer in his own right. He had come from a very oral society to one that is dependent on written texts and electronic material cultures.

A nation is strong if its foundations are build on a well read and literate population. Good leaders and wise man can lead their people, but their people can fall behind and be a burden, when they cannot understand what is happening around them. Policies on improvement of quality of life and national development have been made and shelved because then no one reads them or implement policies The implementers do not understand them owing to their inability to read such documents in the first place. The language of some of these policies is written in difficult technical languages that people have different kinds of interpretations and takes on a policy.