Pictured: Education Minister, Lucas Dawa Dekena (File Image)
By Jim John
A total of K 212,497,575.00 million is now with the Bank of PNG to clear and transfer to the commercial banks to disburse to schools’ accounts this month.
The National Government has made a full commitment to support the Ministry of Education by allocating the required funds to pay the schools under the National Education System in the second quarter of 2024 academic year.
Education Minister Lucas Dawa Dekena has announced that the payments will be made to each sector as follows:
- All sectors (Elementary /Primary/Secondary/Vocational/NSoE) – K134,997,575.00
- FODE/SERC – K3,000,000.00
- Project Fee – K40,000,000.00
- Permitted Schools (One-off) – K2, 500,000.00
- Teaching and Learning – K32,000,000.00.
“Many schools will not be getting their payments because of various issues to do with the closure of their bank accounts,” the Minister stated.
He said that 25 schools in Enga Province were put off the payments, due to tribal fights and schools totally burnt down while nine schools’ accounts were closed after they were identified to have duplicate accounts.
Meanwhile, a total of 102 schools that had problems with their bank accounts will be paid in this quarter after these issues were fixed.
Also, schools that had submitted their data late will also be captured in this payment. A list of these schools will be made available to the provinces after the payment process is completed.
Education Minister Lucas Dawa Dekena said, “I call on the school administrations to spend the money on tangible resources including infrastructure development and support teaching and learning in their schools. School administrations must also provide quarterly reports to the Department, through the Provincial Education Offices in order to receive tuition fee grants.”
