By Colleen Barilae – EM TV News, Lae
Huonville Primary School is still waiting for the balance of government funding it was supposed to have received this year.
Head Teacher, Barn Kawage, says this year the school received over K40,000 for the first quarter of 2016 in Tuition Fee Free (TFF) funds.
“I would like to say that the government can keep up with its Tuition Fee Free policy and pay us in full, then there won’t be any problem,” Kawage said.
The funding received in April, did not fully meet all the school’s resource needs and expenses.
Incomplete infrastructure, a classroom that will cater for administration offices, a conference room and library were all initially built using 2014 TFF funds.
But the construction work remains incomplete pending receipt of the next quarter of TFF funding for 2016.
Kawage says the school is in need of more funds to fully meet the school’s expenses.
What the school has received this year is less. They are usually given over K100,000 in quarterly payments.
The head teacher says so far it has received two payments during the month of March and April, for K11,000 and K38,000 respectively.
Last year they did not receive their last quarter payment.
Huonville has 1,600 students with 40 staff, and learning resources are inadequate.
What this Lae school is going through is a representation of the difficulties public schools face, especially where funds are paid through grants.
Further reductions in the quarterly payments will contribute to less infrastructure development taking place in schools.
The government this year allocated more than K600 million for TFF funds, but on the ground, schools have not received full payments.
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