The University of Papua New Guinea is located in the heart of the capital city, Port Moresby, where I live and work. This is my twelfth year of employment with the University. The University has five main Schools with the central administration and four of the five Schools located at the Waigani Campus. The School of Medicine and Health Sciences is located at the Taurama Campus, adjacent to the Port Moresby General Hospital.

Almost all staff houses are located on campus. I live in one of the institutional accommodations which is a five minute walk to the School. It is also a ten minute drive to the main city beach so I often take my children to the beach in the evenings as there are very good facilities for children to play and enjoy themselves. We sometimes take our dinner and eat at the beach.

There are only two seasons in Papua New Guinea, which are wet and dry seasons. The wet season starts around November and ends around March. At the moment it is wet season and we are receiving heavy rains just about every week here in Port Moresby. The flu virus spreads fast and becomes contagious during wet season so our visits to the beach are not frequent now.

The School of Medicine and Health Sciences where I teach caters for students from other Pacific Islands, particularly Solomon Islands, and other international students. The total number of students annually is around 500 to 600, including both the new intakes and continuing students, with the largest number of students in the Medicine program. Staff numbers are over 150 including both academic and non-academic staff. The campus is large enough and it is usually quiet and peaceful and most of the physical facilities, particularly the lecture halls, tutorial rooms and the library, are user-friendly.

The University offers undergraduate, graduate, diploma and certificate programs in more than thirty major programs. The University also operates an Open College, which provides a focus for the extensive distance learning education program. There are six national Open Campuses located in six provinces in the country. The first international Open Campus was opened at Honiara in the Solomon Islands in 2009. There are also Provincial University Centers and a number of franchise study centers have also been set up in other tertiary institutions and mining companies. The University also has a multidisciplinary maritime research station on an island some twenty kilometers outside of Port Moresby. Plans are in place to develop this facility into a Regional Climate Change and Sustainable Development Maritime Research Institution.

My introduction to HERDSA was through Dr. Allan Goody, who was a facilitator in the Graduate Certificate of Education at James Cook University (JCU). This course was sponsored by the Australian Government under a twinning program between UPNG and JCU. The course provided vital training and exposure to the foundational knowledge and skills associated with core aspects of university teaching and learning, and enabled creativity and innovation in utilizing research-informed teaching and learning strategies to improve student learning.

I so desired to affiliate to an organization that I could stand on its shoulders and learn from, and upskill my knowledge and skills, so I was pleased to take the opportunity to become a HERDSA Affiliate member. I am also a member of the Council of Academic Public Institutions Australasia (CAPHIA) and learning a lot as well.

My passion in applying the training I received from the Twinning program as well as learning and information from both HERDSA and CAPHIA saw me undertake a major review of the topics I teach in the Medicine program. The program adopts a fully problem-based and integrated instructional method. Its emphasis is on self-directed learning approaches to foster “key skills of researching, acquiring knowledge, communication, collaboration, problem-solving and transferring knowledge to new situations”.

Photo: Etu Buka (at right) with colleagues