Education: the future for Central Province

I feel for Central Province. Where has the Provincial Government's priorities gone to? I see less and less number of Central Students entering Uni each year and perhaps any tertiary institutions for that matter. If not university, are we even going to provide any alternative pathways for them to access vocational training perhaps under the TVET programs.

We do not have any major natural resource/commodity that we can bank our future upon. Developments in NCD have pushed us right to the corner and they are not stopping. Are we strategically preparing our future generation to take on the challenges of modernization and transformation from subsistence to cash economy? Are we equipping our future generation with the knowledge and skill set to compete in what will become (or has become) a very challenging market in the near future?

Just take a look at Kwikila, Kupiano, Mainohana, Sogeri, Iarowari, Mt. Diamond and Laloki Secondary schools (the only names I know of out of the 12 listed in the National Education Plan 2015-2019 statistics as of 2014). Need I mention the 188 primary and 304 elementary schools.What state are they in? Are they adequately resourced and supported? Are these schools being given any thought to? This is 2018 the numbers have risen for sure.

According to the 2015-2019 NEP, as of 2014 Central province has 70,656 student enrollment with more than 50% male. Again this is 2018 the numbers have risen for sure. Projected rates suggest more because of the TFF. Of this 70,000+ how many make it to University or other tertiary and vocational training? I am assuming perhaps 10-15%. Might be wrong.

Go ahead and build stadiums and hospitals and many other infrastructure projects but guess what someone else will come and run them for us. We will be spectators in our own land.
Give them the opportunity to learn how to catch fish rather than feeding them a fish. They will starve when you run out of fish.

Nelson Mandela quoted "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." If not the world, at least change your province.
Your likes and reactions to this post don't matter, what matters is please do your part as a leader, parent, and as a student yourself reading this.
We are not alone, we are standing on the shoulders of giants who have gone before us, let's change the mindset of our young people!

Analysing the World Bank Report on Doing Business in PNG for year 2015-2018

Analysing the World Bank Report on Doing Business in PNG

for year 2015-2018

By Picky Airi

Introduction

According to the PNG Vision 2050 mission statement, we should be ranked in the top 50 in the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) by 2050 and one way the country envisions to get there is through advancements in economic growth. Presently according to the 2016 HDI report produced by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) the current ranking places PNG in 154th place out of 185 countries. A ranking which is categorized under the ‘Low Human Development’ group. (Human Development for Everyone. Briefing note for countries on the 2016 Human Development Report. 2016. pg.7). Although the HDI measures average achievements in three basic dimensions of human development different from business, the report also acknowledges the role businesses play in empowering and improving these areas of human development within a country (UNDP, 2016). Particularly advocating for women in business and social and local entrepreneurship for young people.

Another PNG music legend gone

Although I am not an expert in music, my observation is that there is no real support platform for talented musicians in this country especially those who have made it 'big' (in terms of fame, not monetary) in this industry.  

"Disruptive technology and file sharing and the lack of understanding of copyright law and its enforcement mean that all stakeholders—music labels, recording studios, artists, songwriters, composers and so on—are struggling," CHM's Braden Chin told Business Advantage in an article about the massive decline of the music industry in PNG.

Another news article in Loop PNG highlighted what local artists think about the music industry in PNG.  

Some of PNG's finest musicians who have hit the airwaves with their powerful voices and music settle back into the stark reality of the struggles musicians will continue to face in this country; little to no financial backing to sustain their livelihood and more importantly their health. 

Moses Tau.Image source: newslinkpng.wordpress.com

MOSES TAU a name so familiar and one of the best entertainers in PNG Music has left his fans devastated after his sudden death on his birthday.  

While we mourn the passing of a flamboyant musician who also attracted a lot of controversy because of his sexual orientation, one of PNG's finest and ARIA-award winning musician, George Telek is seeking financial assistance for operation and recovery on mouth cancer. Read Telek's story here.

Some of our music legends have passed on and others might be going through similar situations. It hurts so badly especially to their immediate families to see their loved ones who served not just their family but their fans and community at large with their talent. 


Although locally and internationally renowned, some of our great talents are seen as grassroots musicians who do not have the funds needed to pay for expensive medical treatment. 

In this video interview with late Moshanty's elder sister we learn that he too had a illness with his mouth. Perhaps while arranging for fundraising events to support him financially for further treatment his fight to continue living and singing has finally come to an end. The sudden passing of one of PNG's Music Icon and a proud Papuan whose hit songs topped charts for years and still does today has shocked the nation.

It saddened me to hear of this news too because like many of us, at some stage, our dull moments were turned into joyous laughter by his exuberant and sassy character.

Much respect to you legend and champion of PNG Music and a proud Central Natuna.

Rest in Love and Eternal Peace!


Note: You can support George Telek's fundraising by going to this link.

Links to articles referenced:

1. ‘Massive decline’ of Papua New Guinea’s music industry, say key players 
2. What local artists think about music industry in PNG 
3. Help George Telek in his time of need 
4. PNG music legend George Telek to undergo surgery in Australia for mouth cancer
5. PNG TV video interview 

DNS Vulnerabilities and the potential threats

What is DNS?

To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet. When typing a name, that name must be first translated into a number by a system before the connection can be established. That system is called the Domain Name System (DNS) and it translates names like www.icann.org into the numbers – called Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. ICANN coordinates the addressing system to ensure all the addresses are unique. (ICANN "DNSSEC-What is it and why is it important?")

Why should I care?

According to ICANN, vulnerabilities in the DNS discovered recently allow an attacker to hijack this process of looking some one up or looking a site up on the Internet using their name. The purpose of the attack is to take control of the session to, for example, send the user to the hijacker's own deceptive web site for account and password collection. Recent posts from various members of the ICT Community Forum on Facebook led me to think that there is a possibility of this happening to company websites. It seems PNG government websites are the prime targets.

Some websites that have been reported on this ICT Community Forum with connectivity issues;

• www.pm.gov.pg
• www.pmnec.gov.pg
• wss.finance.gov.pg
• www.ipa.gov.pg 

Captive portal software

I was doing some research on the different types of captive portal software available and here is a list of open source captive portal software as well as a few closed source (paid) software. A few of these software also have additional network access control features apart from just simple redirects. I hope to maintain this list and update it in the future when new software or products become available. 

An example of a captive portal from Sophos

What is a captive portal software? In short it is a web page which is displayed to newly connected users before they are granted broader access to network resources.

Captive portals are commonly used to present a landing or log-in page which may require authentication, payment, acceptance of EULA/accepted use policies, or other valid credentials that both the host and user agree to adhere by.

Using MailMerge to send progressive results to students

In my almost five years of teaching, I have been using this method of keeping my classes updated of their progressive results every semester. We have only started using Moodle Gradebook two years ago (well at least for me) but I still find myself having to resort back to this method of updating my classes of their progressive results.

If you are like me, wanting to make the most of what basic tools like your MS Word, Excel and Outlook can offer then this post is for you. (I am assuming you are using a Windows OS with MS Office installed already) In this post, I go through step by step on how I create a grade book for my class and send the results to their emails using a method called MailMerge.

There are two things that we need to do;

• Task 1: Creating a grade book in MS Excel
• Task 2: Using MS Word to create a standard template for the mail merge ready to send the results from the Excel grade book.

Task 1 Creating a grade book in MS Excel

For this tutorial we will just use dummy test results, names and emails.

Step 1 Open a blank Excel file. Create seven columns and put in the column headings as First_name, Second_name, Email_add, Test1, Test2, Test3, Total

Step 2 Add at least three to four records of dummy details. One email can be your own email or a second email you use. This will be an email which you will use to verify that your mail merge is successful and you are sure that students will receive the assessment report. Here is a sample of my gradebook. Make sure to save the Excel file somewhere.

Gradebook in Excel

You will notice here that all the emails here are real emails except for the last one. This is so that I can demonstrate at the end that the mail merge was successful and I posing as a student have received the report.

ICANN63 Fellowship Application Round Now Open

ICANN63 Fellowship Application Round Now Open: LOS ANGELES – 20 March 2018 - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (lCANN) is launching the application round for individuals interested in participating in the ICANN63 Public...

Safe Exam Browser Tutorial

 Information Systems Department

Safe Exam Browser Tutorial By Picky Airi

Safe Exam Browser is a web browser-environment to carry out online exams safely. The software changes any computer into a secure workstation. It regulates the access to any utilities like system functions, other websites and applications and prevents unauthorized resources being

used during an exam.

Some of your Moodle Course Quizzes and Exams may require the use of Safe Exam Browser.

You will need to download Safe Exam before taking these Quizzes or Exams. Please follow the

instructions below.  

Is my email address leaked?

A recent alert released at the end of August by the Australian Government's Stay Smart Online reported 12.5 million Australian email accounts were leaked online. The email addresses of 711 million people have been published online, and include those of 12.5 million Australians.

The personal data has been dumped on a server called Onliner Spambot, which since 2016 has been used to spread malware to steal banking details, and infect people’s computers so they send out viruses and spam (unwanted emails).

The full report can be read here. The article on this site also suggest necessary steps that can be taken should one find out if there email address has been leaked.

How to find out if your email is leaked
The report also suggested that if you want to find out whether your email has been leaked or not you can check out this site HAVEIBEENPAWNED.

Since I use several email addresses I was keen to find out. I have three different GMAIL accounts so I fed each of the address one by one into the Pawned site.

I was surprised to find out that one of my gmail address was pawned on 1 breached site.

The breached site happened to be Edmodo (an education platform) which was hacked in May 2017 resulting in the exposure of 77 million records comprised of over 43 million unique customer email address.

I had to change my password immediately.

It appears LinkedIn is among the sites who's security has been compromised.

What do I do after I find that my email is leaked?
 This same report lists some very important steps that need to be taken should your email happen to be leaked, ways to protect yourself and what to do if your identity is stolen.

Restoration: When does it begin?

The following is a sermon I prepared to share with the United Church Madang Congregation on Sunday 27th August, 2017.  

Sermon: “Restoration: When does it begin?”

By Picky Airi

Bible Reading:

·         OT Ruth 1:1-22

·         NT Titus 3:4-7

What is restoration?

(Merriam-Webster dictionary):  an act of restoring or the condition of being restored: such as:  a bringing back to a former position or condition.

Restoration is required only when something has left its former position/condition and has gone into a state where it was not supposed to be (and this could be due to several factors).

Let us look at the story of Ruth in Ruth 1:1-22

Setting of story

(Ruth 1:1) It is interesting to note that the story about Ruth happened at a time when the Judges ruled. There was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Jud 21:25) It could be interpreted from this verse in the light of the Book of Judges which describes a morally corrupt period, that the writer of Ruth is painting a dark backdrop against which Ruth’s model character and actions will shine even more brightly. Or that the grace of God still abounds his people despite all their wicked actions and that he is calling for us to re-assess our own lives.