Parents to top up TFF to keep school from closing

Highlands

PARENTS of pupils attending Tarangau Primary School in Mt Hagen have agreed to pay K50 per child to top up the school’s tuition fee-free funding.
The parents decided to pay the fee so that their children’s education would not be disrupted by funding shortfalls.
Tarangau is a level eight school. It has 1825 students, 40 teachers and seven ancillary staff.
The school was supposed to receive K475,200 in TFF funding this year, but so far for the first term it only got K106,940.30 instead of K237,600. In 2017, the school did not receive the K180,983.39 it
was owed for the last quarter of the year.
While receiving reports from the school board and the administration, parents decided to pay to help the school run to the end of the year.
Parents’ representative Koiti Mel said the parents were being asked to help despite the promised TFF grants.
He said free education was one of the many policies in place but it was not being run properly.
He said the government should include infrastructures in the grants because overcrowding and higher enrolment rates were becoming serious concerns.
Head teacher William Pora said the school needed more money to maintain its operations.
“We cannot pretend and the decision made by the parents to support the school’s operation is welcomed,” he said.