ABSTRACT
A Western-educated indigenous elite in PNG is a very recent asset. Sir Hubert Murray, Australian Lieutenant-Governor of the Territory of Papua between 1908 and 1940, claimed that ‘it will be soon enough in the next generation to consider the establishment of secondary schools and the creation of a Papuan intelligentsia’ (quoted in Dickson 1976:36; my emphasis). And it took yet another generation, well into the 1960s, before the colony offered tertiary education to its inhabitants. In 1963, the Administrative College opened in Port Moresby, and the new University of Papua New Guinea—the ‘intellectual soul of the nation’ (Olela 1980:199)—accepted its first students in 1966. During this time, the Technical College in Lae was upgraded and became the Higher Technical College (today: University of Technology); indeed, access to tertiary education is a recent asset in PNG.
