Central signs historic MoU with flag carrier

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, March 23, 2014 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

THE Central Provincial Government and Air Niugini signed a historic MoU (Memorandum of Understanding), which will see five young girls from the province, set to undergo pilot training under a new program initiated by the Governor Kila Haoda, have the opportunity to work with the national airline, last week in Port Moresby. 

Seen as a new direction in promoting gender equality set by provincial government, the signing paves way for the airline to select top cadets from the initial five females who have been selected recently under the provincial government’s initiative to undergo pilot training at the Nelson Aviation College in New Zealand.

The five girls were selected out of 170 candidates for the pilot program, aimed at empowering the young educated Central women to aspire in male dominated field such as flying.

With the first group of five girls coming from three of the province’s four districts- the 58 week course will see an investment by the province of NZ$115,000 (K287,500) per student.

Something the Governor was necessary in terms of empowering the young Central woman, and also bringing back a high standard in the human resource the province will turn out in the future- something he said was lacking over the last 20 years. 

“We are quite confident that we will meet our commitments in this program, and province as is very happy with this news going out, that at least the government is recognizing the need for women- who have always been seen as workers in the home,” he said.

“We are new and fresh in terms of running the province, and we want to get the province to become the standard in Papua New Guinea.”

“This is the bench mark that I am setting for my province in all areas of training and development.”

The governor added that they would also look at other areas like engineering and other skills, not just pilot training.

“Central Province is quite fortunate in PNG because it is where the capital of the country is- in education and everything started here in Port Moresby,” Governor Haoda added.

“We had a high standard of educated elites in Papua New Guinea, and that standard has gone down drastically in the last 20 years.”

“There are a lot of student out of the system in the village, and I as the governor would like to bring initiatives to bring the glory back to our people.”

Air Niugini CEO Simon Foo expressed the airline’s full support behind the initiative, highlighting the province as being the first to follow through with the concept- something similar to their existing pilot cadet training concept. 

“Air Niugini has 25 years of cadet recruitment experience in seeking the best candidates for the program has been demonstrated with our own successful cadet program and we hope in the future, we can support the Central Provincial Government right from the initial stages of recruitment,” he said.

Two of the initial five, Selina Kule from Rigo District and Marie Auka from Abau District, both students at the University of Papua New Guinea expressed their excitement at the prospect of being pilot, saying it was a dream and opportunity that they would strive to achieve.

Those selected will begin their training at the flight school with classes set to commence on March 31.