Restless nights for parents

By GLORIA BAUAI
MOTHER of five Lucy Sigl says the new school year means stress and restless nights for parents of children in tertiary institutions.
Sigl, from Chimbu, said she was still repaying school fee loans for her eldest child who finished from Pacific Adventist University a year ago.
“I owe lending institutions almost K100,000 for school fee loans because every year, I had to pay K21,000,” she said.
Sigl is a teacher at Sagir Primary in Huon Gulf, Morobe, with 15 years experience in the field.
She said her husband was a casual driver and his pay could only cater for their children’s day-to-day lunch money.
“With my yearly savings, I pay for our younger children’s back-to-school needs, including any parental component required by the school,” she said.
“My savings cannot cater for tertiary fees for my eldest child so I had to get loan for four years.
“I will complete repaying my first loan next year (2022) but I still have loans for the other three years pending.”
Sigl said this was the situation faced by average Papua New Guineans who were trying to balance their children’s education along with the burden of increasing cost of goods and services.
She commended the Government for its free education policy for elementary to secondary school level but said the real need was for the State to intervene at the tertiary level as this was, by far, the most expensive level of education.
“If I, a working parent, struggles and sacrifices one child’s education for another, consider parents who are subsistence farmers who cannot afford this,” she said.
“Education assistance should go towards tertiary education because this is the group that’s closer to joining the workforce and contributing to the economy through taxes.”