Poor supplies see Morobe school results take a dive

THE remote areas of Morobe need to get adequate school supplies and material to support students and teachers, an official says.
The chairman of the tuition fee free education taskforce committee, Robin Bazzinuc, said the Morobe government has signed a public-private partnership with Treid Pacific Ltd to ensure that supplies reach the schools.
“The low performance in our schools is not good. Teachers are doing the best they can but the school materials are not being received on time,” he said.
Company general manager David Wilson, outlining the plans for the next school year, said the commodity component was approved for every student to get their entitlements on time.
“The financial management, book-keeping, standardised budgets, inspections and audits will be commenced to ensure the cash component is acquitted by every school,” he said.
“The joint monitoring of schools will be revived with the district committees visiting schools on a scheduled routine programme. The quality of education will be restored in the PPP, based on short, medium and long-term strategies coupled with implementable realistic budgets.”
This includes:

• Building infrastructure development after scope, survey and status reports and a five-year plan of each school is undertaken;
• textbook development, printing, publishing, delivery, training and inventory control system to be established; and,
• Resourcing all schools in the province with libraries, science and information and technology laboratories, music and games and extra-curricular activities.

“District resource centres in each of the nine districts will be initiated so that there will be effective and continuous in-servicing and capacity building of all teachers, head teachers and all school boards,” Wilson said.