Education
School Fee Woes In Papua New Guinea
But one bank is prepared to help out
Will all Papua New Guinean school-aged children go to school when the 2003 academic year commences in February?
This is an uncertainty and no one has a definite answer as many parents struggle to survive in the face of the weakening economy. Prices of goods and services are constantly increasing, the value of the kina remains very low and wages static.
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This situation is slowly forcing majority of the population to live below poverty line and unable to afford school fees for their children this year. The nation, in spite of its vast economic potential (with mineral and oil exploits), is no longer economically stable to support this free education policy introduced by the former People’s Democratic Movement-led coalition government of Sir Mekere Morauta.
The announcement by the Somare/Marat government to abolish free education that Papua New Guineans living in both urban and rural areas had cherished for years since its introduction, is really a blow to about 80 percent of the population who depend on it.
The decision taken may seem wise considering the current state of the economy, but the timing may be wrong. Many parents in the “not-to-do-well bracket” are faced with a dilemma that some of their children may miss out on school this year.
This will greatly affect school children in primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
Islands Business randomly interviewed some parents and relatives on the school fees situation and their reactions were the same— while barely struggling to survive, they can’t afford to raise the required fees to send their children to school.
Michael, who works at the University of Papua New Guinea, has his son accepted to attend a technical school in Port Moresby. “I really cannot pay my son’s school fees this year because I don’t even have K1100 (required fees) and the commencement date for the school year is coming up fast. He will have to stay home this year and we’ll figure out something next year,” he said.
Likewise, Kila, who has just started work, has a younger brother who’s been selected to commence the first of a four-year degree programme at the University of Technology in Lae this year. He had won a government scholarship but he has to pay 50% of the total fees. Their parents are not working. She tried desperately to raise the required K1200. She cried bitterly when asked how she was coping. “I don’t know if I can raise that money. He may not go to school this year,” she said.
Several parents from rural Malalaua in the Gulf provinces and Guari in the Central province expressed complete dissatisfaction at the government’s move to abolish free education.
Many are subsistence farmers and have their children attending high schools, technical colleges and other tertiary institutions.
Parents are burdened now more than ever before and many young children may not go to school this year because they don’t have the required school fees. School boards are not making it easy too on parents. The advise is that children can only go to school upon paying the required fees.
One parent applauded the Education Minister’s vision of the financial collaboration between parents and the state. But he said education should be a free service that the government must provide to the people. “By that I don’t mean to say that education should be free. But at least to a level where parents can afford it,” he said.
He added: “Many of our good leaders now in government paid nothing at all for their school fees when they were students in universities. “Yet they make it extremely difficult for me and other hard working parents. They themselves had gone through the formal schooling or education system at little or no cost at all.”
The government is slapping fees on everything regarded as education and training. The user-pay policy has for the first time been extended to include elementary teacher trainees throughout the country. It was free since the introduction of the elementary school system several years ago.
Only recently, first year trainees for the annual elementary teacher training in Port Moresby arrived for the first day of the six-week course, only to be told that they had to pay for the course. All the trainees did not have the fee of K710 (K10 for enrolment, K300 for course materials and rent for facilities and K400 for materials required for the units they are to do in their own time) to pay and had to be sent home to find it.
Elementary teacher training was introduced to help promote literacy in communities where illiteracy is high.
The school fee controversy continues and the government is not backing down on the user-pay-policy. The Opposition has warned that the abolition of the free education policy is the surest and quickest way of making Papua New Guineans poorer or literally forcing them to live below poverty line.
Experts say that 80 percent of the rural and urban populations already live below poverty line.
Opposition leader John Munignepe said the partnership arrangement announced by the government that school fees would be paid by parents and government would not work in the present harsh economic environment. He said prices of goods and services are increasing, the value of the kina remains very low and wages remain static. “There are no new jobs, thus creating more unemployment for parents who are finding it difficult to feed their household full of unemployed relatives and youth, who cannot find jobs,” he said.
“Education is a very important tool in poverty reduction and increasing equality in our society.
”By abolishing free education, the Somare government’s education strategy will cause great social problems by dividing the people into lower and upper classes with lower class suffering while the upper class gaining.”
Meanwhile, one commercial bank has made a commitment to help parents this year. Bank South Pacific (BSP), a nationally owned commercial bank, has opened a school fee loan scheme for parents throughout the country to borrow money and pay their children’s school fees. It is a relief to parents. The loans will eventually be repaid at a low interest rate. Many parents have been seen lining up at BSP to lodge their applications.
