Lae missing out on tuition-free grant: Official

By EREBIRI ZURENUOC
The Lae District Administration has not received any infrastructure component from the tuition fee-free (TFF) education policy for more than two years, says a district education officer.
District education manager Kaumu Laga said the 30 per cent infrastructure component for schools was never given.
“From the TFF policy, they say 30 per cent of the fees go to school supplies, 30 per cent to infrastructure for schools and 40 per cent of the fees go straight to the respective school accounts,” he said.
“They say the 30 per cent component should go to the districts and the district will use it to put up infrastructure for schools.”
When asked to confirm if the component was given under the district services improvement programme (DSIP), Laga said: “We have not received a 30 per cent TFF infrastructure component.
“From the DSIP there was never a component for TFF included in it.
“Even if the infrastructure component is given, what criteria are we going to use to allocate infrastructure funds to each school in the district?”
He said they have different levels of schools in the district, some are level 4 and level 5, others are level 8. “How can we go about allocating the fund?” Laga said.
He said the 30 per cent component for school supplies was given on time this year, but there will still be challenges and difficulties with the distribution because the 2015 data for schools was being used for the purchase and distribution of school materials.
“There will be shortfalls of school materials and supplies to most schools in the district,” he said.