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By
ELIZABETH VUVU
HEAD teachers and board of managements of schools in East New
Britain province entrusted with school fee subsidies will now come under
intense scrutiny to stamp out abuse of funds.
The abuse of school fees was the topic of discussion by senior education
officials comprising provincial education advisers, senior school
inspectors, district education officers and representatives from the
National Education Department in Port Moresby.
It was learnt that, in the past, many school fee subsidies earmarked for
schools have been misused or squandered unnecessarily by teachers and
board of management members resulting in no improvements being made to
schools.
School buildings were run down, no text books were bought, libraries had
no books, and the bulk of parents ending up paying higher fees, more
than what was set by the National Education Board, to offset the misuse.
East New Britain has been allocated K5.3 million of K143 million in
subsidies released to the Department of Education to distribute to all
schools around the country.
Deputy provincial education adviser Pius Gawi said there was a need for
setting up of an effective monitoring system to monitor the expenditure
of school fees subsidies, which must comply with the Public Finance
Management Act.
Mr Gawi said the method of acquitting funds spent must also be improved
to ensure false claims were detected and action taken, adding that
internal auditors would be going around to make sure subsidies were
spent properly.
 
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