PM Archives

The second part of a regional review of education was our cover story in the September/October 1994 issue of Pacific Magazine. That review found on-going challenges, from falling enrollments and the continuing need for expatriate teaches in the Cook Islands to substandard facilities in nearly every country and territory. But there were a number of positive developments, including a 98 percent literacy rate in Samoa. What is striking, reading this report, is that if the story was run today, it would still apply to many countries.

Anyone Home: "A chartered helicopter has been flying over a rugged section of Papua New Guinea that is considered to be the most promising oil field to see if there are any unrecorded tribes of people living there. The search is necessary before the PNG Mining Department can begin sorting out traditional land ownerships and avoid recurrences of land disputes in the Southeast Gobe oil field."

Aussie Rules: "'Whatever policies we've been following in the South Pacific - and by 'we' I mean Island countries and donor countries alike - are demonstrably not working; and not judged by some alien standard, but by the yardstick of sustainable development we've all set ourselves." So said Gordon Bilney, Australia's minister for Pacific Island affairs and development cooperation, in a recent address to the Foreign Correspondents' Association - one that was relayed by satellite to the island countries where it almost immediately began to raise some eyebrows."

Hot Subject: "The government of the Federated States of Micronesia has sent a letter to the Marshall Islands government expressing strong opposition to a proposal to store nuclear wastes in the Marshalls. Resio S. Moses, FSM secretary of external affairs, addressed his remarks to Phillip Muller, foreign affairs minister for the Marshalls, over the latter nation's proposed feasibility study for long-term storage of international and domestic nuclear wastes."