Schools need project fees

 WHOSE responsibility is it to maintain school buildings or build new ones?   

This is a matter of grave concern because school buildings are crumbling all around the country while parents, teachers and school boards stand by helplessly expecting help from somewhere.  

Ironically, the same decades-old buildings are being filled up with an increased number of children because of the government’s tuition fee free education policy.

Go no further than the capital city to realise the ex­tent of the neglect and inability by schools to maintain a decent standard of school infrastructure all year round.

The problem of deteriorating school buildings and the very grave health and safety issues facing students and staff in the schools is common among many schools and those in the National Capital District are no better than the rest.

The National Capital Dis­trict Commission this week ordered the closure of Tatana Primary School for health reasons. 

Five other schools in the capital city face imminent closure as well owing to similarly deteriorated conditions giving rise to health and safety risks. Waigani Pri­mary, Carr Memorial Primary, St John’s Primary, Maranatha Primary and Tokarara Secondary have been issued notices of closure.

These schools are all in the Moresby North-West electorate. The situation elsewhere in the NCD is not much different. Recently, the Moresby South MP personally visited one school in his electorate and came away with some concern at the rundown state of buildings.

It appears from the condition of the buildings in these city schools as well as hundreds of others around the country that school administrations do not have much say in the maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Infrastructure involves a lot of investment by school boards which cannot rely on the Government or some chance benefactor.  Schools administrations must be given the leeway to raise much-needed funds for the maintenance of existing school buildings and construction of new facilities. It is illogical for the Education Department to issue a blanket restriction on schools from raising money through project fees because of the tuition fee free (TFF) policy.

The department must realise that the TFF funds are not sufficient and even if the money is faithfully remitted to school accounts they are mainly to buy school materials.   What happens to much-needed infrastructure development like maintaining dilapidated classrooms or replacing over-used toilet bowls? Indeed, the TFF policy has placed a burden on school administrations, which are now struggling to maintain an increased number of students in rundown classrooms.

This is merely echoing what has been already expressed by a number of school headmasters and boards.  Everyone welcomes the Government’s tuition fee free education policy which now provides access to students who would otherwise struggle or be denied an education because of economic reasons. However, there are very obvious drawbacks of the education policy, one of which is the limited number of school infrastructure or rundown facilities.

The real danger here is that quality education will be seriously compromised as there are a high student-teacher ratios, way above any number a reasonably trained teacher can cope with.

Obviously the workings of the policy call for more classrooms and facilities and more well-trained teachers. 

All of these contribute to the quality of education.  Ignoring one aspect of the education system would fail to achieve results expected. 

Allow schools to charge project fees so they can rebuild or refurbish school buildings and create more classroom spaces for the growing number of children. 

On their part, school boards must be made more accountable in their responsibility over physical infrastructure, ensuring safe and hygienic school environments.  

In the absence of project fees, the Government would have to do more than the mere provision of curriculum materials and instead concurrently fund a nationwide school infrastructure development programme to complement its policy.

Perhaps the O’Neill-Dion Government would want to devote the next two years of the education money to infrastructure maintenance and development before the end of its term?