By FRANK RAI
THE Morobe patrol post will now have a new technical high school.
The ground breaking ceremony for the K13 million school was staged at the Toyare Primary School last Thursday.
It was seen as the dawn of a new chapter for the Morobe patrol post local level government.
The new school hopes to build on the local people’s traditional craftsmanship.
A boat building and maintenance course will be in the school’s syllabus.
It is a skill that had been lacking since independence, villagers and community leaders said.
The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by prominent Morobean leaders and public servants including Morobe Governor Luther Wenge, Morobe LLG president Paul Wari, Deputy Administrator Patalias Gamato, chairman of Provincial Technical, Vocational Education Training Robin Callistus, Huon District administrator Tony Ase and Huon District Education coordinator Moses Wanga.
They jontly expressed sentiments that the school was unique for its boat building and alluvial mining courses when classes begin next year.
Mr Wenge who officiated at the ground breaking ceremony, told a packed crowd that the Government had allocated an initial K1 million for the project while the Morobe provincial government and Huon Gulf electorate would put in another K700,000 to get the project off the ground.
Mr Wenge said this year’s initial budget for the project would be K1.7 million and it would accumulate every year to meet the required budget of K13 million to complete the technical high school in the next few years.
Mr Gamato also said the school would bring technical skills right into the village for the people to utilise their resources.
“We have the resources including fish, timber, gold, copper and nickel. We have to have the right kind of education to sustain the use of the resources to help ourselves,” Mr Gamato said.