TFF policy used to lure votes

Letters

THE Tuition Fee Free (TFF) policy was a political tool used by the previous government to lure in votes during national election.
It has entrapped, stimulated and manipulated peoples’ conscious in wanting this policy.
The quality of education in this country has dropped rapidly since the introduction of this policy.
Even though the number of children in schools have increased, the quality of education acquired is very low.
The biggest challenge that the government faced was how to build the capacity of the system to cater for everyone.
I believe the TFF policy is not ready to be implemented for a developing country such as Papua New Guinea as yet.
I agree with the views of Koreken Levi’s (a lawyer bureaucrat) opinion in The National on Dec 3 that it is a brilliant move to break the hoodoo of tying citizens to politicians’ free school fee bondage – a scheme invented to cripple people’s ingenuity into doing their own things to meet parental obligations.
However, I believe this TFF policy is not fully equipped meaning there should be adequate classrooms, learning materials, libraries, teachers houses and others before the implementation of TFF policy in this country.
The cutting of the money for schools’ infrastructure development from the budget according to Education Minister Joseph Yopyyopy as stated in The National on Dec 6 in my opinion, will still cause a negative outcome in disseminating quality education to our children.
Because many electorate members have not taken education seriously, they have been shifting the education component to other areas in the budget.
A classic example would be the K27 million school infrastructure component which was misused as stated by the Papua New G Teachers Association PNG’s general-secretary Ugwalubu Mowana in The National.
If leaders are serious about our children’s education and their future, the provincial governments should make it their priority to allocate a half or a quarter of their budget to compensate for the misused schools’ infrastructure component as stated above.
I do agree with our Prime Minister James Marape that he will dispatch a write up on education policy, where parents and local MPs plus governors will assist with 50 per cent of cost at elementary to grade 12.
While the national government picks up the balance plus assisting school leavers through Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) for tertiary institutions.
There are six TFF policy components that should be budgeted for by the government to effectively implement the TFF policy:

  • Teaching and learning component;
  • teachers development component;
  • schools’ administration component;
  • schools infrastructure and development component;
  • good governance component; and,
  • Students welfare component.

The delay of TFF subsidies has made the schools encounter problems. One school has approximately 60 to 80 plus students per class in their primary level from (grades 3-8) while their elementary level have approximately 90-100 students per class.
This is just unfortunate for students and this affects the dissemination quality education.
A key feature of the TFF policy is that subsidies are sent directly to school accounts, bypassing provincial and district and district administrations. This gave schools’ direct control over their subsidies.
The government should cater for all the TFF policy components in order to see the full realisation of the TFF policy.

Michael Trawanga, Jr,
Critical Observer