BY ELIZABETH MIAE
THE Manus provincial government plans to set up a technical school to cater for the province’s growing army of school leavers.
A proposed site on Patu Island in the South Coast of the province had already been identified for the school.
Governor Michael Sapau said there were many young men and women who had dropped out of school.
“Because they were jobless, they had nothing to do but create social problems … we anticipate more of them to drop out of school.
“We see this as a time bomb if we do not address the problem soon .... so we decided to put up a technical school to help them gain new vocational skills for employable jobs,” Mr Sapau said.
He said they had already held talks with the University of Papua New Guinea for possible reopening of the Manus University Centre as a distant learning mode for gaining access to tertiary education off campus.
The proposed site on Patu Island once hosted the St Paul High School back in the 1950s but was relocated to Papitalai near Lombrum in 1969 where it is now known as Christ The King or Papitalai Secondary School.
Papitalai was one of the two secondary schools in the province catering for Grades 9 to 12.