New school leaver forms require biodata

 THERE have been drastic changes to the Grade 12 school leavers’ form (SLF), which basically requires students to provide personal details.

Apart from the document size increased to A3 from A4, the changes include specification on a student’s locality, behaviour which teachers are expected to  comment on and banking information.

Thimon Bune, coordinator for national selections in the Office of Higher Education, revealed these to secondary and private school students in Lae last Friday at the Okari campus for the first Morobe division of education career expo.

The specifics on locality are to solve the data problems associated with students whose parents are from one province but who grew up in another province and claiming to be from there.

Bune said it would be compulsory for teachers to comment honestly on a student’s behaviour and character as it would be seriously considered for selection into tertiary institutions and vital in the approach by OHE to cut down on protests and strikes by tertiary students.

“Please teachers, can you expose them so that we help the nation,” Bune said.

He said it would be compulsory for school leavers to have a commercial bank account, as the Government through the OHE is serious about depositing students’ allowance under the Tertiary Education Students’ Assistance Scheme (TESAS) directly into their accounts instead of leaving it to the institutions.

“All you Grade 12 students must open your bank accounts as the TESAS funds allocated to you will be deposited directly into your account and what you do with it is up to you.”