Poorly equipped school suffering

The lack of standard-based education materials has affected the implementation of the curriculum in an elementary school in Morobe.
The head of Bumneng Elementary School in Lae, Mary-Esther Gong, said the school has not fully implemented the new curriculum because of the lack of materials.
“We have not been equipped with necessities and do not have materials to implement the new curriculum this year. From government’s instruction we are supposed to be finishing classes at two in the afternoon, but haven’t done that for this year.”
She said after the standard-based education trainings that the teachers had attended, the
school was has not been fully equipped to roll out the new curriculum.
“We tried implementing it this year but have found out that we haven’t gained enough knowledge to plan on that.”
Gong said the school would try to start full implementation of the curriculum next year. The school was upgraded from a pre-school to elementary school level in1998 in line with the education reforms and has nine teaching staff today.
Gong said the school has seen an increase in its enrolments of prep, elementary one and two classes with 418 students this year, from 300 last year.
It is a feeder school to Huonville Primary, with students coming from as far as Nadzab, East and West Taraka, Bumayong and the Miles area outside Lae city.