PACIFIC ISLAND YOUTH SPEAK OUT

Mana (Auckland), 14 July 1977, Page 1

PACIFIC ISLAND YOUTH SPEAK OUT

Pacific Island governments should have more control over their inindustries and should do more to promote rural development. These were some conclusions made by Pacific Island youth attending the South Pacific Regional Youth and Population seminar held in Fiji recently. The delegates discussed aspects of population movement, industrial development, education and family life in the Pacific. They felt that the drift of people from the country to the towns was creating social problems that could be remedied through developing small co-operative industries in the rural areas.

Better roading and more emphasis on community social, economic and planning services should be aimed at in rural areas, noted the delegates. They said youth groups should get involved in rural education and recommended that high school and university graduates work in the country for over a year before they got a job back in the towns. Schools in technical, agricultural and fisheries’ training should also, be established for the unemployed, they added. “South Pacific countries are agricultural countries. Dependence is on the productivity of the land and to maintain a strong economy first preference is the development of farm lands by the government,” they concluded. Youth delegates also noted that the nationalisation of essential industries would strengthen Pacific Island governments by preventing company profits from leaving the country. Delegates criticised (European-style education as being geared to “urban survival” and individualism. It created drives in students to “make it” in the towns but then the few that

acquired their ambitions were often branded as the “elite” or “Island white men”. Although European values could not be escaped from, a more Pacificoriented education system should be adopted, said the youths. ' New Zealand delegate to the seminar, New Zealandborn Samoan, Samuelu Sefuiva, praised the progress made at the youth seminar. “It showed that Pacific Island youth are more aware of the role they can play in the development of their own countries.” He said the seminar’s aim was to identify social and economic problems and show Pacific Island youth how they could bring about changes by working through the system. Mr Sefuiva commented that job training in the Islands needed to be more oriented around their environment, e.g, farming and fisheries instruction. He said the Europeanstyle education system was producing “white-collar workers” and tradesmen when there was no need for them in the Islands. “People should be able to relate their education to the environment around them.”