Hela school yet to get subsidies

 By JEFFREY ELAPA

A SCHOOL in the remote area in Hela is still awaiting its allocation of the tuition-free school for 2012 and this year.

Parents and teachers at Guala Primary School in North Koroba, Koroba-Lake Kopiago district, said they had been accumulating debts up to K20,000 while waiting for the governing funds.

School board chairman Mark Bibila told The National from remote Guala village that parents, teachers and the school’s board of management were concerned.

Bibila said the school with more than 500 students missed out last year and first quarter of this year’s cash component totalling more than K80,000.

Attempts to get comments from Education secretary Luke Taita were not successful.

Bibila said the school was one of the oldest in Hela and needed all the assistance it could get.

He said they had been going to the education authorities in Mendi since last year to find out the cause of the delay and also sent queries directly to the Education Department but to no avail.

Bibila said it was unacceptable and unfair to the children and teachers in such a remote school.

“We acknowledge the government’s intervention to relieve parents from paying schools fees but I am disgusted in the manner the authorities are addressing the disbursement of the funds, particularly for my school.”

“I call on the education minister, the education secretary, the Southern Highlands education adviser and other stakeholders to look into the issue,” he said. 

“We need the money to run the school,” he said.