O’Neill encourages graduates to serve their country

DIVINE WORD UNIVERSITY

PRIME MINISTER PETER O’NEILL has told graduating students from Divine Word University that Papua New Guinea needs them for its development.

Mr O’Neill was speaking as the guest of honour at DWU’s 31st graduation ceremony at the Madang campus earlier this month.

He said members of parliament and public servants alone cannot develop the country and needed all citizens, including fresh university graduates to contribute.

“I need, and our government and our nation, need your support and involvement,” the prime minister told the graduating class.

Mr O’Neill urged the university graduates to aspire to be successful in life.

“I want to see a nation of people – and especially young people – who have ambition, a thirst for success, a desire to achieve,” he said.

Mr O’Neill was among a distinguished list of dignitaries that included members of parliament, the Australian deputy high commissioner Margaret Adamson, DWU Council members, visiting academics, bureaucrats, business people and clergy.

Mr O’Neill said the government is growing the economy to enable more university graduates and other citizens to participate.

“What our government is doing to help you, and other young and not so young citizens, is to grow our economy through a confident and expanding private sector,” the prime minister said.

“In part we are doing that by linking training and job creation for our own people to the approvals for of major resource developments,” he added.

The prime minister paid tribute to the contribution of the Christian churches in nation-building and acknowledged the work of the Catholic church, citing DWU as a fine example.

DWU President Fr Jan Czuba said the university has always supported government policy like other universities. He said the testament of DWU’s contribution is the graduation of 1,741 people (50.3 % female and 49.7% male) – the highest number in its short history.

“It is a great contribution that this university is making to the development of human resources in Papua New Guinea,” Fr Czuba said.

He said the graduates were “idealistic and committed people who will drive the economic, cultural and social progress.

Comments

[J Bagi]

I am inspired by what the prime minister mentioned at our graduation ceremony earlier this year at DWU.

We are Papua New Gineans and it is our role to develop this nation. Since our economy is booming, we need experts to do the job. And we are the ones!

[Richard Ponja]

A nation cannot prosper without the participation of its own citizens. What the prime minister said is very true about this nation Papua New Guinea, as we are now in a stage of a boosting economy.

It is right to serve your own nation as a patriot in whatever field you are specialised in.

The young men and women graduating out of universities in the country should be the ones leading this nation. The government and the people needs you to drive this young nation foward.

[Kialo Kui]

I surely agreed about what Mr O'Neill mentioned during the graduation.This is what we expect of our leaders.

I am thankful that Mr O'Neill is willing to support and provide job opportunities for new graduates. We appreciate that.

It was an inspiring speech. We hope that there are enough spaces allocated for the new graduates to seek employment opportunities.

[Ben Akuani]

I really appreciated what Mr O'Neill said during his speech here at DWU's 31st graduation regarding the job creation opportunities for newly graduate students.

It's time the government looked into this seriously and implemented his policies so that many of our university graduate students won't roam the streets of PNG looking for jobs.

We have been facing these problem for so long and at least the government should consider it more seriously and do something about it.

Thanks Mr O'Neill for raising this very important issue as many of us are eager to know if our government could at least do something about it.

[Bernard Yegiora]

Welcome DWU to PNG Attitude.

Hope to see more articles.