Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern announced a $9 million package to make it easier for Pacific students to access education.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced $10 million over three years to enhance free-to-air Pasifika TV service.

Education

"This initiative will leverage high-speed internet connectivity to ensure more Pacific students have access to high-quality education and learning opportunities," said Ardern.

The package includes a project to support teachers to deliver an interactive e-learning science curriculum for year 10 students in Samoa, Vanuatu, Cook Islands and Solomon Islands.

The $5 million e-learning for science project will develop a suite of interactive e-learning resources that will allow non-specialist teachers to deliver the year 10 science curriculum.

The package also provides for a partnership project with the University of the South Pacific and the Commonwealth of Learning to expand open, distance and flexible learning opportunities at secondary and tertiary levels.

Broadcasting.

An expanded Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Ltd service will include a dedicated Pasifika TV channel with New Zealand content.

The expansion will also include a comprehensive training programme to support broadcasting and journalism across the Pacific including equipment, internships and cross-regional training.

"Informed open conversation facilitated by the media is the backbone of transparent governance," said Peters.

"This initiative provides an opportunity to support broadcasters throughout the region to contribute to that debate."

The expanded Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Ltd service, valued at NZ$10 million over three years, will include a dedicated Pasifika TV channel with New Zealand content, improving both quality and access for free-to-air broadcasters across the region.

"The expansion of the Pasifika TV service will dramatically improve the way in which New Zealand content is delivered across the Pacific," said Peters.

Source

scoop.co.nz

scoop.co.nz

He said one of the effective ways to teach children today was to make use of visual media.

"That is the culture we are living today. The children of today are 'screen aged' so they learn faster when they see pictures on the screen," he said.

"It's a very powerful tool and children nowadays don't read much like we did in our young days.

"They want to see something on the screen and that's the culture of children today, so we definitely need to be creative and there's a lot of resources in the internet to use."

On a trip he made to Brisbane in Australia for a conference, Chong said a theologian revealed that he also taught children through movies.

"If you are talking to children and then you show them a screen with pictures or a movie about the lesson you are teaching, they will all turn their heads to the screen," Chong said.

Chong was speaking at a meeting with church members, including Catholic teachers in the North on Sunday night.

Source

• fijitimes.com
• Image: wired.com

The symposium was held on 1-2 May at the Catholic Theological Institute in Bomana, Port Moresby.

A theological key note address, ‘Evangelising in the 21st century', introduced the theme and was followed by experiences of community and religious radio broadcasting in Australia, Italy, Africa, and the Philippines.

During the second day the focus was on Papua New Guinea with a presentation by PNG National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) acting manager Allen Aarifeae followed by a forum with all resource persons and the presence of directors of PNG Catholic radio stations (Port Moresby, Mt Hagen, Rabaul, Lae, Bereina).

Fr Gianni Criveller, a Hong Kong based theologian, Italian missionary and media expert Fr Fabrizio Colombo, Sydney CRADIO staff member Luke Streher, and PNG journalism student Bradley Gregory also took a smaller number of participants and a dozen of PNG Catholic radio operators into a two-day workshop to enhance their communication skills.

The activity was sponsored by SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication based in Brussels and Rome, and by the office of Social Communications of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.

This year's symposium followed a similar initiative held around the same time last year on Social Networks: Portals of Truth and Faith; New Spaces for Evangelisation.

Source

Supplied -Fr Giorgio Licini Catholic Reporter PNG

Image:: curielproducciones.com

From what comes across my desk in theological literature there is still a lot of life in the Virtual Council, though it is true that it holds no enchantment for young seminarians or members of new ecclesial movements. Thus, the Church of the future, as a matter of demography, will be more closely oriented to the documents of the Real Council.

The end of the "Virtual Council"

When Blessed John Paul II lay dying he said to the youth who had travelled to Rome to offer their prayerful support: "I have searched for you, and now you have come to me, and I thank you." Less irenically he might have said, "I have tried to get through to you, notwithstanding layers and layers of deaf and dumb bureaucrats, and now that I am dying, the fact that you are here means that at least some of you understood, and this is my consolation." Similarly, Benedict seemed to be saying to the clergy of Rome, notwithstanding all the banality, all the pathetic liturgies, all the congregationalist ecclesiology, the Virtual Council of the Media has lost its dynamism. It is no longer potent. It no longer sets the course of human lives; it no longer inspires rebellion. It too has become boring and sterile. Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: Catholic in Brooklyn