Teachers to follow dept guidelines

By LORRAINE JIMAL
TEACHERS are free to exercise their democratic rights to educate citizens about elections for the country’s development, Teaching Service Commission chairman Samson Wangihomie says.
Wangihomie said teachers could educate students about the democratic process of elections, how it was conducted and the government’s formation.
He said while teachers could teach students about the electoral process and history, they could not tell them who to vote for.
Wangihomie said teachers were allowed to engage in the general election as election officials and scrutineers but they would return to classes on the dates given by the Education Department.
Manus Secondary School principal Alois Kinol stressed that only a few teachers would be involved in the election period and the department had put out a circular on the involvement of teachers.
“We are aware of the circular of the teachers to be involved in elections and school grounds not to be used for campaign activities,” he said.
The National also spoke to heads of several other schools on whether their grounds would be used for polling activities and would also it if the provincial education boards made a formal request.
Ramu Valley High School board chairman Lucas Kuniata said they would allow their grounds to be used as a polling site if their provincial education board made a request.
“Right now, we are just waiting, if they request for a school ground we will meet and discuss first before making any decision but no political campaigns will held in school,” he said.
Meanwhile, Education secretary Dr Uke Kombra said no political rallies, speeches, gatherings, sponsored activities and sports would be conducted in any of the national education system schools whether elementary, primary, secondary centre or vocational centre.

Party focuses on improving revenue generation

WITH the current economic struggles faced in the country the newly established Advance Papua New Guinea Party (APP) believes that the government revenue has to be increased, an official says.
APP founder and leader Nick Kuman said sufficient funds needed to be generated before the country could spend on expenditures particularly on infrastructure while economically viable projects that were sustainable needed to be built.
Kuman, who is Gumine MP, said this during the fundraising and official launch of the party and announcement last Wednesday which Prime Minister James Marape attended.
The party endorsed 35 candidates to contest in the general elections.
“We must now shift our focus from services to commerce-oriented policies,” Kuman said.
“Either through legislation or amendments of certain laws to create a pathway for economic recovery as a way forward.”
Kuman also highlighted that the public servants salaries consumed a lot of the budget hence the public service needed to effectively improve their service delivery programmes to the people.
The APP aims to:

• FOCUS on making more revenue to spend on the economic infrastructure;
• SAVE surplus revenue through creation of sovereign wealth funds for future generation;
• PROMOTE downstream processing and building industries; and,
• ENSURE each district must have proper development goals aligned with the provincial and national Medium Development Plan and Vision 2050.

Teacher: School will only participate with polling if board approves

MANAM Island’s Bieng Primary School in Madang will only allow polling on its grounds if approved by the provincial education board (PEB).
Senior teacher Charlie Ekuri said his school had not received a request or direction from the PEB regarding its involvement in election-related activities. However, Ekuri said they would follow up with provincial education authorities this week.
He added that there was nothing wrong with schools in rural communities taking part in the election process, as long as they had approval from their PEBs.
Meanwhile, says it will continue its half day classes due to a shortage of food following the two recent volcanic eruptions that has damaged food gardens and contaminated water sources.
“Parents are now coming to the school and complaining and we have no choice but to continue half day classes,” Bieng Primary School senior teacher Charlie Ekuri said.
Ekuri said to date, the affected communities had not received assistance from any State agencies or NGOs and the affected people were surviving on coconuts, fishing and whatever they could salvage from their gardens.
The National asked if a report had been sent to the Education Department and Ekuri said a report had been presented to provincial education authorities yesterday to be taken to the department.
Attempts to get comments from the Madang disaster office were unsuccessful.