WRITING ESSAYS FOR GRADE 12

Think globally and write locally

There is a special skill in writing essays which will gain a pass mark for Written Expression exams.


The key skill is to understand the big picture and write to the big picture. If the topic is on a PNG issue, start with a world view and work down to PNG.

Problems of development of Papua New Guinea

All countries have the same basic problems in development. The key is to support a growing population. The developed world grew through trade with the developing countries that had become colonies of empires.

The developed world of Europe and America needed raw materials to support their secondary industries. They fought wars to keep their colonies and sources of raw materials.

Even with independence, little has changed for the colonies now calling themselves independent nations. They still need to sell raw materials and import manufactured goods.

They find no difficulty in allowing foreign countries to extract minerals including natural gas. But they find great problems in selling agricultural products to those same developed countries.

Papua New Guinea is a newly developed nation with no infrastructure for manufactured goods except for basic domestic products. Some technical goods are manufactured overseas but assembled in country.

Most secondary goods are imported which makes for problems when the currency declines and the nation has to pay more for foreign imports. Papua New Guinea will never sell oranges to Australia because the citrus industry has to be protected.

So Papua New Guinea suffers from many problems from the need to sell primary products and import most secondary goods. An economy based on primary production and tertiary support will not employ all those seeking work in the nation. Unemployment is high with great problems for school leavers of the future.

Rights of women

Over the last century in the world, there has been a long process of seeking the rights of women.

In the 1920s in England, women campaigned for the right to vote with opposition from those men who said that women were not emotionally fit to have a voice in the affairs of the nation.

But the scene changed with the two world wars when men went to fight in the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Women joined them as nurses.

Other women worked in the munitions factories to make war supplies. This placed them in a better position to have equal rights to men.

The rights of women increased in the 1960s with the Vietnam War and the protest particularly in Australia and the United States. Following the 1970s, women were given equal pay for equal work.

But the arguments remained that the place for women was in the home having babies and looking after the family. The same argument remains in Papua New Guinea.

The pressures on equality for women in the world has extended to Papua New Guinea in modern times. There is now pressure from the United Nations on the rights of women. Laws have been passed to prosecute men violent to women and girls.

Problems have arisen in PNG with the freedom of women, many of whom will take the opportunity to be involved in adultery with mobile phones, marijuana and homebrew. There will be violence of women towards men.

The wantok system places women in a difficult position with the continuation of bride price, men taking more than one wife, women unable to control birth through family planning and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.

But the role of women is changing. They must not be disheartened by the failure of the 22 seats in parliament.

Women are being urged to involve themselves in business and to continue through to high school. Universal Basic Education gives a greater chance to all boys and girls.

But women still suffer from unwanted pregnancies and HIV/AIDS. Many young girls sell their bodies as their families cannot provide their financial needs.

Pollution of the environment

World pollution began with the industrial revolution in the 1600s but has only just started to damage the world in recent decades.

In earlier times, the view was that rubbish could be thrown into rivers and the seas. Though many developed countries have worked to clean up the environment, there are still countries including PNG that use the rivers as garbage dumps.

The worst pollution comes from developed countries still locked into burning of coal and smelting of iron. These countries are pouring massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and increasing the inevitability of global warming.

China has the worst track record in pollution that is so bad that rivers, seas, ground soil and human bodies are being damaged.

Toxic waste is being poured into the seas. Papua New Guinea will find that the Ramu and Sepik Rivers are being damaged by toxic waste from the gold mines.

Papua New Guinea has allowed mining companies to pour their waste into rivers. The Fly River has been irreparably damaged.

About 20 years ago, a barge on the way up the Fly River sank allowing a large load of cyanide in drums to sink into the depths of the river. These drums have never been recovered and are a waiting time bomb.

Pollution in the Magadus Square from the Sepik and Ramu Rivers will damage the breeding grounds of the yellow fin tuna that live and move in the entire Pacific rim.

There is a major problem in the world with the wholesale removal of jungle in South America, Africa and the Pacific.

The Amazon River of Brazil was once deep jungle that has now become grasslands for cattle. This will directly affect the global warming and levels of rainfall.

Global warming is melting the icecaps and glaciers of the world. This is causing an increasing rise in the sea levels. Already there are small island nations in the Pacific that are being covered by water.

So the industrial revolution that began 300 years ago has begun to damage the earth. Climate changes are occurring with new patterns of rainfall, droughts, floods, hurricanes and tornados.

The United States in particular is suffering from hurricanes from the Gulf of Mexico and east coast. There is a collision of cold air from the Arctic that meets the warm winds from the Gulf of Mexico producing countless numbers of tornadoes.

Will it ever stop?  We learn from the story of Superman. Krypton was destroyed while the inhabitants argued. And Superman came to earth to work as a mild mannered reporter on the Daily Planet