About Us

Brief History

Saint John Bosco, popularly known as Don Bosco, is a towering personality of the 19th century. He ventured greatly into the field of education with innovative vision and creative action.

He dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the Salesian Preventive System. A follower of the spirituality and philosophy of Saint Francis de Sales, Don Bosco dedicated his works to youth and founded the Salesians of Don Bosco. The society founded by him is presently functioning globally in 133 countries with 1877 institutions.

Don Bosco Simbu Technical College is the first agency Catholic Technical College under the department of Education for boys and girls of grade 10 and 12 school leavers. As a Catholic agency college, it forms Papua New Guineans to be good Christians and honest citizens of this country instilling Christian values according to the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church.

Simbu is a small mountainous province situated in the centre of the Papua New Guinea highlands. With 31 people per square kilometre, it is the second most densely populated province in the country. Due to overcrowding and the lack of educational and economic opportunities, one-fifth of the people born in Simbu eventually move out of the province and find their way into the town centres   of  other  provinces.  Because  these  young  people  do  not  possess sufficient skills for urban employment, they easily fall into exploitation and law and order problems.

Confronted   with   this  reality,  Bishop  William  Kurtz,  SVD  of  the Diocese of Kundiawa  approached the Salesians as early as 1986 with a request that they establish a centre to train a growing number of grade ten school leavers with work and life skills.

 In late 1986, the late Fr. Joseph Savina from the Don Bosco Technical School in Port  Moresby  went  to  Simbu  to  find  out  a possible presence. Among the various sites proposed were the Catholic Mission stations of Dirima (South Simbu) and Siure (Kerowagi District), a property adjacent to Kondiu Secondary School, the then Simbu Coffee Society at Wara Simbu to the east of Kundiawa, the Kundiawa Technical School and the abandoned DPI Station at Kumgi. Due to lack of personnel at that time, the Salesians could not yet make any definite commitment for Simbu. Meanwhile, the Member for Kerowagi, Mr. John Kamb, had joined Bishop Kurtz in keeping the cause of Simbu alive. By 1995 a site was located and it was the DPI Station at Kumgi.

 On April 24, 1995, the official ground breaking of the new center materialized. Constructions immediately followed. The late Fr. Joseph Savina, was asked to supervise the work with some of the Salesians and by February the following year, 1996, the Training Centre opened its doors to its first intake of trainees in the woodworking trade. The garage of the residence served as the first workshop. The following year 1997, a group of automechanic trainees joined the woodworkers, the former doing their workshop practice under the teachers’ flat, which  was  just  constructed.  With  the  coming  of  more  Salesians  to form a community, the late Fr. Joseph Savina was installed as the first Rector of Don Bosco – Kumgi on May 16, 1997. That same year, the technical training centre was officially named DON BOSCO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.

School Year 1998  saw  the  first  batch  of Electrical  trainees  among  the 154 trainees. And by November 1998, the first graduation was held. Twelve woodworkers completed their training and were all immediately employed after graduation. And by 1999 the first batch of Machine Fitting trainees joined the Woodworkers, Automechanics and Electricians.

On  27  May  1999,  the  ambassador   of   France  to  PNG,  His   Excellency  Pierre  Le-Gars  and  the  Representative of  the European Union, Mr. Juan Carlos Rey were the guests of honour at the turn-over of the two classroom wings and two workshop buildings sponsored by their respective governments. Fr.  Francesco Panfilo,   the   delegate   superior  of   PNG,  received   the  symbolic  keys  of  the buildings on behalf of the Salesians. Construction on the AVR-Library-Classrooms building, donated by the government of France also commenced that year. The second batch of graduates, 7 Carpenters and 21 Auto-mechanics  the first  batch  for the  trade, received  their Certificates  on  24  November 1999 after completing three years in training.

The school year 2000 saw another trade being offered – Office Administration for girls. On the 21 November 2000, the school celebrated the 3rd Graduation Ceremony with 11 Carpenters, 14 Auto-mechanics and the first 22 Electrical  Trade  graduates.

The school year 2001 saw the completion of the trades from level one to three with the exception of the girls’ trade which is only until level two. From then on, all the trades followed only a two-year programme. This year marked the first graduation in all trades of the two-year programme.

As of school year 2002, the school was better known as Don Bosco Tech – Kumgi. This year too marked the last graduation of students in the three-year cycle.

From 2012 the graduates were awarded with National Certificate level Two (2).

On 16th  February  2015  the  status  of  DBTK  is  raised  to  Don  Bosco Simbu Technical College hereafter known as DBSTC. In the same year Diploma in Business Studies-Accounting and Welding Technology  were added to the existing trades.

2016 Diploma in Business-Studies-Computing and Diploma in Business Studies-Office Administration are added to the existing trades.