Fear of sorcery and violence keeping people insufficiently educated in village of Papua New Guinea

[danieldemol]

'Hundreds of students in a remote Papua New Guinean school have been stuck repeating the same grade for eight years because teachers are not showing up to work, community leaders say.

Key points:

• Teachers at the school remain on the payroll despite not showing up, community leaders allege
• The school's headmaster says the staff are scared of sorcery and violence in the region
• PNG's Teaching Service Commission is investing and says the issue of staff absenteeism is widespread'

Source: Students at this school have allegedly repeated the same grade for eight years amid 'sorcery' concerns

I can understand being afraid of violence, but I think it a shame if allegedly educated people are potentially allowing ignorance to gain a foot-hold due to imaginary fear of sorcery.

In my opinion.

 

[JustGeorge]

'Hundreds of students in a remote Papua New Guinean school have been stuck repeating the same grade for eight years because teachers are not showing up to work, community leaders say.

Key points:

• Teachers at the school remain on the payroll despite not showing up, community leaders allege
• The school's headmaster says the staff are scared of sorcery and violence in the region
• PNG's Teaching Service Commission is investing and says the issue of staff absenteeism is widespread'

Source: Students at this school have allegedly repeated the same grade for eight years amid 'sorcery' concerns

I can understand being afraid of violence, but I think it a shame if allegedly educated people are potentially allowing ignorance to gain a foot-hold due to imaginary fear of sorcery.

In my opinion.

If they were honestly afraid of sorcery, you'd think in 8 years time they'd have learned some protection methods against it...

 

[danieldemol]

If they were honestly afraid of sorcery, you'd think in 8 years time they'd have learned some protection methods against it...

Well I suppose they could stand on their heads 3 times a day, it would be at least as effective as sorcery.

In my opinion.

 

[JustGeorge]

Well I suppose they could stand on their heads 3 times a day, it would be at least as effective as sorcery.

In my opinion.

It would be good exercise.

 

[Brian2]

Well I suppose they could stand on their heads 3 times a day, it would be at least as effective as sorcery.

In my opinion.

Standing on your head would be as hard as putting your elbow in your mouth imo and it would hurt if you managed to do it.

 

[Gargovic Malkav]

'Hundreds of students in a remote Papua New Guinean school have been stuck repeating the same grade for eight years because teachers are not showing up to work, community leaders say.

Key points:

• Teachers at the school remain on the payroll despite not showing up, community leaders allege
• The school's headmaster says the staff are scared of sorcery and violence in the region
• PNG's Teaching Service Commission is investing and says the issue of staff absenteeism is widespread'

Source: Students at this school have allegedly repeated the same grade for eight years amid 'sorcery' concerns

I can understand being afraid of violence, but I think it a shame if allegedly educated people are potentially allowing ignorance to gain a foot-hold due to imaginary fear of sorcery.

In my opinion.

Though I don't think this is the point of the article, it occurred to me that education leads to more awareness,
and more awareness gives people more power to manipulate things.
Things being manipulated to the manipulator's own liking is sometimes called magic or sorcery...

 

[Aštra’el]

You probably posted this article just to mock them, but did you even bother to find out what they mean when they say “sorcery”? There may be another word for it in their language and it might not even mean whatever it is you are laughing about. Science related fields might be interpreted as “sorcery”. Medicine, technology, etc. Or perhaps by “sorcery” they mean “natural forces beyond our village’s understanding”, such as an invisible pandemic that kills without mercy.

 

[danieldemol]

You probably posted this article just to mock them, but did you even bother to find out what they mean when they say “sorcery”? There may be another word for it in their language and it might not even mean whatever it is you are laughing about. Science related fields might be interpreted as “sorcery”. Medicine, technology, etc. Or perhaps by “sorcery” they mean “natural forces beyond our village’s understanding”, such as an invisible pandemic that kills without mercy.

I'm sure they have a word for sorcery in their own language, but belief in sorcery as the word is commonly understood is well known to be a problem in Papua New Guinea.

Not so long ago I posted a thread where some people in PNG were brutally murdered under trumped up allegations of sorcery;
Can belief in sorcery lead to murder?

I doubt you would murder someone for practising science (unless you believed science was some kind of "dark force") and for teachers they should be educated enough to know that pandemics are caused by germs and not dark forces.

In my opinion.