City school needs more space

 OMILI Primary School in Lae has over 2,200 students and needs more land and classrooms.

That need has forced the school board to push for an adjacent road stretching roughly 50m.

Board chairman Kay Takising and treasurer John Peka made the board’s intention known, saying the road listed as Bau Street ran between the school and the Omili sports oval and was rarely used by traffic.

The level eight primary school and one of the biggest in Morobe has infrastructure cramped in the current school ground and there is no more room for expansion for more classrooms or teachers’ houses.

“We don’t have any enough land space in the school ground, we have so many students that they cannot all go out during recess and use the sports field at the same time so we have to allow certain grades to use the field at different times,” Takising said.

“This road is uneconomical and is not used by traffic and is secluded resulting in several holdups which have happened here and we are planning to move the school fencing out for another 30 meters or so and use that space for the school,” Peka said.

Takising said they had approached relevant agencies like the Lands and Physical Planning division and Morobe provincial government and have received positive feedback on their planned removal of the roughly 50m road stretch.

A market structure for the school built last year by Bank South Pacific was converted into a classroom to be used temporarily by students, while the mothers are now selling food under the shady trees.