Special arrangements for landowners’ children

YARAPOS Mercy Secondary High School in East Sepik has accepted the demand for 10 Yarapos village students to continue grade nine every year under a special arrangement for the benefit of landowners.
Provincial education adviser Pius Munkaje gave the approval for the school to enroll the students in a meeting on Friday when the landowners pressed for compensation for contamination of water from the school’s sewerage system, illegal acquisition of customary land through the creation of 10 places for grade nine and 11 students for the children of landowners. Landowner’s spokesman Caspar Yake said that schools giving special consideration to landowners’ children was common practice throughout the country.
   “We are upset because the current school administration overlooked an existing agreement that their parents established with the school for special places for their children since the start of the school in 1966,” he said.
 He commended the education division for acknowledging the plight of the landowners and pledged to work cordially with the school to ensure that the education of the students was not jeopardised in any way.
 Mr Munkaje told the landowners that selection of grade nine students were under his jurisdiction and therefore the reserved enrolments for grade nine would be filled every year.
“I will consult with the Secretary for Education on their demands for grade 11 enrollments which are within his powers.” 
Meanwhile, all primary and secondary schools in Wewak visited by The National were found to be busy registering new students for the new school term yesterday.
 The Bank South Pacific Wewak Branch had a long queue that stretched from the bank to Tang Mow Supermarket with parents braving the hot sun for hours to pay their children’s school fee deposits.
Saturday banking  introduced by banks to cater for school fee deposits was scrapped due to security reasons.