‘Fly-Schools’ accounts must close

 I WOULD  like  to  highlight a few concerns  regarding primary schools in the Erave district of Southern Highlands. 

Travel to these schools is by air or by walking for two to three days. So the schools were named ‘Fly-Schools’ since third level airlines were  used  to  transport  teachers  in and out of this remote areas. 

They include Sopise, Waposali and Balowe community schools located near the border districts of Karamui and Baimuru in Chimbu and Gulf respectively.

Now that air transport is non-existent following its closure in the early 1990s, teachers posted at the schools refused due to lack of services. 

Nevertheless, a few teachers capitalised on remoteness and went there for the sake of completing the duty resumption forms and return to town and  stay out of school for the whole year with full pay.

The Sopise community school has been operating for the last 20 years with ghost teachers and students.

It  continued  to get  subsidies in the past years but who benefited from the subsidies remains a mystery. 

However, it  was only in  2010  when the school was decommissioned  and relocated to the Kagua district for  reasons  known  only   to the provincial education adviser.

For  Waposali and Balowe community schools, facts were uncovered when one or two teachers who  went  there for the sake of filling the duty resumption forms  and  stayed  for three to four weeks and then closed the school for the rest of the year with pay.

I used the editorial column in the two dailies requesting for the Education Department to stop depositing free education subsidies into the schools’ accounts. Whether  the  above schools continued to receive subsidies  last year is not my prerogative  to know but as a tax payer and a local literate person, I am compassionate for the kids who continue to  miss  out  on  education while the  kids in the well-managed provinces and districts continue to enjoy the privileges  of  having access to schools, irrespective of being so remote.

My recent visit to the schools over  Christmas justified the real issues on the ground and the following were some of the setbacks identified.

Both Balowe and Waposali schools are covered with grass and thick bushes and it does not look like a school that has been operating for the last two to three years.

Worse still, corrugated roofing iron has been removed while few locals had taken over most of the semi-permanent houses.

Many locals from the Balowe and Waposali  areas  requested  for  the education authorities to close the accounts and further demanded for the education officers to visit the schools to see the reality.

Ken Nandawa

Port Moresby