The Papua New Guinea deputy prime minister Charles Abel wants Australia to make education the primary focus of its aid to the country.
Charles Abel Photo: UNDP
He has asked Australia to provide up to 1000 places a year for PNG students in Australian boarding schools to lift the standard of education in the country.
The Post Courier reports Mr Abel also called for Australian lecturers to be placed in PNG universities and teachers in PNG schools and vice versa.
During a speech to the Lowy Institute in Sydney last week he spoke of the need to ramp up the people-to-people engagement.
Mr Abel said PNG needed to build its own international standard education system but to accelerate this it needed to integrate with the Australian system.
The minister said another significant and related accelerator in terms of global integration and access to knowledge and education is a modern ICT infrastructure network.
He also said access to cheap, speedy internet, meant access to knowledge and education while cheap and accessible electricity and internet at village level is transformative.
