Cuts to Australia's Foreign Aid

You will see a lot more comment from me on the front page of this site over the coming months. Let me start by explaining about the cuts to Australia’s foreign aid budget announced last week on the 17th January 2014. Although the Foreign Aid budget has been cut by 5 million the good news is that it is unlikely to affect aid to PNG. Julie Bishop our new Australian Foreign Minister said that Australian aid would now be more concentrated on the Asia Pacific region and would include a focus on better educational outcomes. I hope this means that schools, teachers and students in PNG and the Solomon Islands see more books in schools in the near future. I taught in PNG and was involved in education for more than 8 years and I know how important a good supply of appropriate text books are to teachers and students. I dare to hope that this might mean that the supply of textbooks could even increase!