Free education, teacher upgrades behind rise in Fode enrolments

National
Students crowding outside the Fode office at Gordon in Port Moresby recently. – Nationalfilepic

THE transferral of other matriculation centres into the Flexible Open Distance Education (Fode) programme has resulted in a big increase in enrolments this year, principal Anthony Rayappan says.
Rayappan said last year, Fode had enrolled 53,000 students from grades 7-12 on their matriculation programme.
This year, the number had risen to more than 72,000 across the country.
Rayappan said this while addressing provincial Fode representatives at the roll-out awareness programme in Port Moresby on Monday.
He said one of the reasons for the rise in numbers enrolling into their matriculation programme was many elementary teachers had been asked by the Education Department to upgrade their grade 10 marks through Fode.
He said the main factor for the increase in Fode students was the Government’s free tuition fee.
Rayappan said the purpose of the workshop was to enable the education advisers and secondary school inspectors to discuss their challenges and work on rolling out the Fode programme into secondary schools in the provinces.
“These are the important officers that work through in provincial schools and decision-making so we give them this opportunity for Fode awareness so that they can establish and implement Fode programme in the secondary schools,” he said.