Asian Development Bank Funds TVET Schools in PNG

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing K174 million worth of support to improve the Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sub-sector in Papua New Guinea.

Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (DHERST) Secretary Dr Francis Hualupmomi told The National that 10 out of the 22 TVET institutes recognised by the department would be benefiting from the total of K233 million TVET for an employment project.

“After we sign today (yesterday), funding will be released as soon as the accounts are open next year after March,” he said.

He pointed out that DHERST would be the implementing agency of the funding, with the PNG Government putting up US$6.3 million (K21 million), the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade US10 million (K34 million) and a concessional loan of US$50 million (K174 million) from ADB.

The 10 colleges earmarked to benefit from the project are:

1. Port Moresby Technical College, 
2. Bougainville Technical College, 
3. Madang Technical College, 
4. Mt Hagen Technical College, 
5. Highlands Agricultural College, 
6. Goroka Technical College, 
7. PNG National Polytechnic Institute, 
8. West New Britain Technical College, 
9. Western Province Technical College and
10.  Don Bosco Simbu Technical College.

“They were selected through the external market assessment conducted by ADB. They did their own assessment and then selected those 10 colleges and they will eventually become polytechnic institutions,” Hualupmomi said.

The specific focus of the project will be on investing in the upskilling of construction and agriculture skills.

This was in line with the government’s priority goals of the Medium Term Development Plans IV to ensure that all school leavers were educated and trained under the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy.

Source: National Newspaper 15/12/2022

This article appeared in the National Newspaper. It is a topic we have been following. We parked it here so that our visitors can read it here. 

FaceApp - Why You Should Delete or Never Install It

FaceApp is a mobile application for iOS and Android. The Face app is developed by a Russian company called the Wireless Lab.

How FaceApp Works

According to Wikipedia FaceApp uses artificial intelligence to generate highly realistic transformations of faces in photographs.

The app can change a person's face to make it smile, look younger, look older, or change gender.

The Russian developer Wireless Lab released the app in January 2017. It is becoming popular among young users who want to predict their appearances or play around with one's looks.

Access to iOS and Android photos

The viral smartphone application has seen a new surge of popularity. The app requires "full and irrevocable access to their personal photos and data". This could pose "... privacy risks for millions of users' according to one report from the US.

Many of the app's users will recall the breach of privacy laws in the US involving Facebook and Russians in a bid to influence the last presidential election.

What happened is that Facebook was slapped with US$5 Billion fine [Forbes report] for its part it this saga.

Unfortunately, other parties got away since they are in jurisdictions where privacy and data protection laws are weak.

So, next time you want to install FaceApp, ask yourself if that is the right app to use. And, importantly, would you want to give a Russian tech company *access* your phone?