Schools need facilities for quality education: Principal

BETTER facilities are needed in schools so children can receive quality education, a school principal says.
Jubilee Catholic Secondary School principal Bernadette Ove said this during the opening of a new double-storey four-in-one classroom in Port Moresby yesterday.
The building is one of Digicel Foundation’s projects.
While thanking the Digicel Foundation for the building, Ove said the school was established from a closed-down hospital in 2000.
“Since then, we had never had a new building,” she said.
Ove said at the beginning of last year, they had a lot of challenges because the school was given additional students and there were not enough classrooms.
“So we literally used the science laboratories, the home-economic laboratories and the library to conduct extra lessons for the grade nine classes because we had eight grade nine classes and currently eight grade 10 classes,” she said.
Ove said the school needed science laboratories, computer laboratories, home-economic building and practical skills laboratories among others but most importantly, there was a need for staff accommodation.
She said most teachers lived in small rooms and needed proper accommodation.
National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop, who was the chief guest at the event, made a commitment to build a four-in-one classroom next year.
Digicel chief executive officer Collin Stone said the classroom was its first major urban project and was valued at K1.2 million.
He said to date the Digicel PNG Foundation had invested K135 million into health and education projects in all the 89 districts.