Schools may run short of papers

THERE are indications that the number of Grade Eight examination papers sent to some schools in the country may not be enough.
More than 105,000 Grade Eight students will be sitting for the national examinations from today till Thursday to attain their basic education certificate.
They will write the written expression paper today followed by English, Maths and combined subjects throughout the week.
Principal examination officer at the measurement services unit (MSU) in Port Moresby, Greg Kapanombo, said some schools had requested more examination papers because of the increase in the number of students.
Unfortunately, MSU was not able to meet their requests as they had already packed the examination papers according to their requests earlier in the year.
He also said the number of students in Grade Eight had increased but there were not enough spaces for them to continue onto Grade Nine next year.
In the Eastern Highlands province, slightly less than 2,000 of the 5,000 Grade Eight students were likely to miss out on Grade Nine next year simply because of lack of space in high schools.
“This is very true in almost every province including the nation’s capital,” he said.
He said parents had to work hard to put their children in higher school education, even now with the Government’s initiative of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) plan 2010-19 which starts next year.