Australia commits to education

By RIGGO NANGAN
THE Australian government is committed to providing education assistance to Papua New Guinea through its basic education development project (BEDP) programmes. 
The BEDP programme, since its inception in 2004, has seen infrastructure and capacity development projects for schools and their communities through a K54 million support grant.
Half a million textbooks distributed to schools around the country, was one of the projects on BEDP’s menu, along with new school infrastructures such as teachers houses, classrooms, maintenance grants for minor repairs on existing infrastructures, trenches to erect school buildings in the traditional way and the hardware or other materials that could not be easily procured by the communities themselves.
In addition, BEDP was programmed to involve schools in a number of capacity building activities aimed at improving school management issues such as school leadership and management training for head teachers and boards and support for the Education Department’s school learning improvement plan (SLIP) roll out to schools.     
Four primary schools in Markham became the first in Morobe and the Momase region to receive a double classroom and a teachers’ house each and capacity building grants through the programme.
The schools were Zaritzian, Zumara, Mutzing and Ngariawang Primary schools.