Planning Secretary Visits Unre’s Vudal Campus

The Secretary for the Department of National Planning and Monitoring recently visited the University of Natural Resources and Environment (UNRE) at Vudal in the East New Britain province.

Secretary Samuel was met by UNRE Vice Chancellor (VC), Professor Aisak Pue, Pro VC Academic Aisi Anas, Pro VC Planning and Development Dr Francis Essacu, Registra Jennifer Popat, Bursar Edward Laki and other program heads of UNRE.

Prof. Pue said the university’s management was new and only had been in office for one month and that the visit was a significant one early into their tenure. Prof. Pue provided insight into UNRE Management’s short term and long term plans as guided by the University’s Strategic Plan 2020-2025, the Corporate Plan and The Human Resources Plan, amongst others.

Some of the challenges included the increasing number of students and staff population, staff and students accomodation, infrastructure capacity, water and electricity to name a few. The Secretary was taken on a tour of the grounds as part of the visit.

“I am happy to be here to have substantive discussions on a way for the institution. We are here to listen and support where necessary as a key central agency of Government.

“We see UNRE and all the other universities as very important to the Government, particularly in terms of producing well trained and skilled human resources for our country.

The government has big agendas in terms of running this country and progressing the country forward in the next 20 to 30 years and it's a massive task. We are looking at all our universities to better position them to help the government to build our human capital base basically because our students are going to run our country moving forward,” Secretary Samuel said.

He said the Government is aware that many of the country’s Universities are struggling with challenges in terms of the infrastructure and student learning facilities.

“Our call to all the Universities is to look at what is critical at this stage, where we should deploy all our resources. With the increasing number of qualified students coming up, institutions like UNRE needs to seriously look at increasing capacity to absorb these students. UNRE’s major programs are focused on the sustainable sector and the Government is seriously looking at investing a lot more in the renewable sector, which is a sustainable sector to grow our economy.”

“In terms of the big picture, we are focusing on quality graduates who will come out and join the workforce and support the Government to continue to work together and deliver the government's development agendas. Vision 2050 is our long range vision and strategic plan. We'd like to ensure that all our state institutions and sector agencies are aligned to the Government so that collectively, we can work together to deliver all those key statements of our Prime Minister and the Government. As a developing country, focus on developing our human resources is important. With the big statements up there, who is going to deliver them but with the help of our graduates who are the next lot of quality professionals and skilled workers,” Secretary Samuel said.