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Bougainville Copper Foundation has a heart for the ‘lost generation’
To upgrade a largely rural province to the status of an economically developed, self-sufficient economy requires the contribution of a great many people: men and women with training and experience in accounting, computer skills, industrial trades, teaching, business acumen and leadership.
Although a great number of Bougainvilleans have strong skills, many are dispersed across Papua New Guinea and elsewhere in the world.
Unfortunately, because of the years lost in the crisis, there is a considerable skills gap existing today, in the age groups who find themselves between the young students who again have places in school, and the older more experienced workers who are nearing retirement.
Some people refer to them as a “lost generation”, men and women dislodged from school by the crisis, missing out on primary or secondary education and now feeling too old to re-enter the school system, to catch up on the lost years of learning.
When the Panguna mine was first setting up around 1970, Bougainville was similarly lacking in developed job skills.
To remedy this situation, BCL developed PNG’s first large-scale training and job skilling program to fit the local population for employment at the mine and its associated industries.
The results were remarkable, as was the impact not only on Bougainville but also on the development of the emerging Papua New Guinea.
It is recorded that as many as 12,000 men and women passed through the BCL training schemes of that time.
A great number of these found employment at the mine and surrounding operations, and when the mine was forced to close in 1990, the BCL workforce found new roles in constructing and operating the other new mines that drove PNG’s wave of resource development after the 1980’s.
Mines like Ok Tedi, Misima, Porgera, Lihir and others including the more recent oil and gas projects have all been assisted by Bougainvillean skills.
It was proudly known all over PNG that if you had trained and worked at BCL in the early days, you were very likely to be chosen for new employment elsewhere, such was the reputation of the BCL-trained workforce.
Not content to rest on this achievement, BCL and the Bougainville Copper Foundation have been consistently, over the years since the crisis, sponsoring young men and women by the hundreds in secondary and tertiary studies.
The future of a new Bougainville will best be created by the skills and commitment of well-educated Bougainvilleans – doctors and dentists, engineers and metallurgists, teachers, agricultural scientists and many others.
Today, the Foundation also has a heart for the so called “lost” ones, too old to return to school to catch up, feeling themselves unskilled and unable to compete for the jobs that might be created if the mine re-starts, and in need of new hope.
The recently released Order of Magnitude Study, which sketches in broad terms what a new Panguna operation might look like, includes the recognition that local Bougainvillean men and women should have a degree of preferential opportunity if they have the necessary skills and attitude.
Supported by the findings of recent research into pre-employment needs, the Foundation is now considering what help can be given, even before the mine starts to operate, to people who feel they are missing out and who would welcome the chance to increase their education and skill levels.
A clearer statement of the Foundation’s position on this issue can be expected later, after careful consideration of needs and solutions.
President John Momis recently reminded Bougainvilleans of the massive training achievement that marked the first phase of mining at Panguna, and said a new phase will produce similar benefits if the population makes itself ready.
The Autonomous Bougainville Government has an ambitious universal basic education program, which aims to have every six-year-old in school by 2015.
New high schools are planned for Tinputz and Kunua, and in the next phase at Kulula and Wisai in the Buin area. |
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