500,000 children without formal education

By TABITHA NERO
DESPITE the Government’s free education policy, more than 500,000 children still cannot access the formal education system, according to Education Secretary Dr Uke Kombra.
“We only talk about improving the access and quality of the 2.2 million kids who are in the formal education and tend to forget those who do not have access to education,” Kombra said.
He was at the launching of a pilot mobile education project at Baruni in Port Moresby yesterday by Life PNG Care with the support of the National Development Bank.
The idea is to take education to places where there are no schools, giving children an opportunity to receive lessons.
“Mobile means school going to where the kids are,” Kombra said.
This is not a classroom where the kids go to school, but this is turning the whole idea of education.
“It means that the school is going to where the kids are.”
He told the children at the event that it was an innovative way of education which would enable them to be productive members of society.
“You have the capabilities of what other kids have,” he said.
“The only difference is that you live in a community where there is no school.”
Kombra praised Life PNG Care director Collin Pake for the mobile education project and assured him of the department’s commitment towards project.