Frustrated LOs lock out students, demand outstanding payments

By YVONNE KAMBIBEL
A SECONDARY school in West Sepik has started the third term in fear and confusion, a senior official says.
Vanimo Secondary School principal John Pai Kants told The National that normal classes did not resume last week after frustrated local landowners in surrounding communities had closed off the school’s main gate, saying the school would not start until their outstanding payments were made.
“The school’s administration building was closed for the whole of last week after the angry landowners nailed planks on the staff room door,” he said.
“It was a very bad start to a new term when students and teachers did not have the freedom to move around freely or have normal classes when the school’s main gate was crowded with people who wanted the school to remain closed.”
Kants said the landowners became more frustrated after the education authorities in the province had directed local police to take down the barricades and open the main gate.
“There is another gate into the school from the teachers’ quarters and we have been using that gate to allow students to enter the school for classes,” he said.
The principal however, said normal classes couldn’t start as teachers and students feared that something worse was going to happen.
“Normal classes only began on Wednesday after the Sandaun provincial government issued orders for local police to provide security and patrol the area at all times,” Kants said.
He appealed to landowner groups whose land the school was on to have a mediation and discuss how much was owed to each of them so that the three parties – the education division, Lands Department and the Department of Forestry – could look into settling payments owed to them.
He said their frustrations had prevented 800-plus students from learning.