Sir J: Education policy helping parents

PARENTS in New Ireland received early Christmas tidings through the provincial government’s pledge to take free education all the way to Grade 12 now that the national government has allocated K649 million to support free education.
Governor Sir Julius Chan, broke the good news to parents and students of Manggai Secondary and New Hanover High School graduations last week of the government’s commitment to free education.
Since introducing free and subsidised education in 2008, New Ireland had been the only province investing substantially in education by spending over K40 million in the past four years to provide free education from elementary through to Grade 8 and 75% subsidy for higher grades and vocational centres and a fixed
K1,200 for colleges and universities for over 43,000 New Ireland students.
“We are the only province in the country that lets the mothers and fathers of school children keep their hard earned money.
“That is, they have kept K40 million,” Sir Julius said
The province has a 77% literacy rate but Sir Julius intends to achieve full literacy in New Ireland by 2026.
Sir Julius presented complete architectural designs and site plan and infrastructure for a multi- million kina model for Konomatalik High School on New Hanover at the school graduation of the second batch of Grade 10 students.
He reminded the school that only four years ago, Konomatalik was empty grassland with no houses and no buildings and yet today out of almost 400 students, 200 of them were graduating at Grade 10.