Border people open new primary school

Lae News, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday 02nd Febuary 2012

By PISAI GUMAR
THE Eya and Gugumi communities on the border of Morobe and Northern will for the first time in 30 years have a community school.
Most children there simply never went to school, while the fortunate ones struggled to the Eu Primary School, between Sowara and Auno villages in Morobe patrol post.
Others went up the Gira river to Ioma, in Sohe district, or to Popondetta town in search of education.
The Huon Gulf district administration has taken the initiative to establish a school this year and administrator Tony Ase and district education coordinator Moses Wanga visited the villages to discuss the idea with the leaders there last weekend.
Wanga said the villages had an elementary school for a bottom-up planning and that a teacher would be sent with basic school materials to begin the first class of the year next week.
Another community school will be established at Ana-Pose village, Mou bush, Yekora tribe, in the eastern hinterland of Morobe station next year.
This will boost the number of schools in the patrol post from 10 to 12 and that will be complemented by Morobe High School becoming a technical high school in 2014.
Wanga said that establishments of the schools at Eya and Ana-Pose villages would ease the struggle of children searching for schools they could attend.
“This will minimise the illiterate and semi-illiterate rate in the areas,” Wanga said.
The school at Eya will serve almost 1,000 children from Eya, Gugumi, Mambututu, inland Gira river, Manau, Mambare, Taututu, Deboi and Bowera and nearby villages in Mambare Bay towards Cape Ward Hunt Point.
“The initiative will act as a light coming out from the tunnel to shed light upon the communities along these areas,” Wanga said.