Help arrives for remote school

GRADE eight and seven students at Tangu Primary School in Bogia proved that they are determined for quality education as they carried building materials and walked for long distances to reach the school.
School board chairman Peter Ariami said there were more than 400 students in two streams but had only six classrooms where three of four students were seated to a desk.
He said they saw the need to have two more classrooms and started to build a double classroom worth K80,000 from their TFF money in 2017. However, they couldn’t finish the project because they ran out of funds.
Ariami said the materials to build the classrooms were carried by students when trucks transporting the materials couldn’t travel further because of the bad road conditions.
“Sometimes our students, both boys and girls, pushed and pulled the vehicle with ropes to help move the school materials,” he said.
Upon learning about the struggles faced by the school and its students, Madang Governor Peter Yama committed K30,000 to help them complete their classroom.
Yama presented the cheque to Ariami and other community leaders who went with him.
Community leader Blasius Uliba said he could not express how he felt, adding that parents and elders of six villages that send their children to that school were so happy when they heard about the donation.
“I cannot express how I felt as a community leader but I want to say that this is first time the Tangu people received a government cheque physically,” he said.
Uliba said most times government payments went straight to contractors and the outcome of it was seen or felt at the community level.
“Our students will be very happy because now we will complete the classrooms and they will be able to sit comfortably,” Uliba said.
Meanwhile, Yama told them that the national government had also approved K2 million for the Bogia Tangu Road.