Wawin National School of Excellence in Morobe province spends almost all its overall budget to maintain the flow of electricity when PNG Power fails to maintain a consistent power supply.
Morobe’s top secondary school operates outside of Lae city which caters for students from all around the country. According to the school administration, the school has a budget of K100, 000 to cater for general expenses annually.
However, due to continuous inconsistency supply of power to the school, the school pulls almost all portion of its budget to cater expenses on standby generator, technical person who works on the standby generator and the servicing of the standby generator.
School principal, Mr. Pal Pu said the school uses two standby generators to maintain the smooth flow of activities on the campus.
“We have one standby generator that supplies power to the school campus when there is a power blackout. Another standby generator is used on pumping bore water into storage area then to school campus.”
“Because of the inconsistent power supply from PNG Power, we spend K80, 000 annually on standby generators to maintain electricity and water supply in the school and with that, almost all portion of the school operational budget covers electricity flow.”
“We have no choice but to put budget allocations annually for the unexpected power interruptions to ensure students learning is delivered.”
Community representative to school governing Council Hoard, Mr. Jim Kelly said budget allocations for electricity alone has been burdening the school on looking at other areas to transform the school infrastructures and learning qualities.
“The government needs to seriously consider improving one of its service deliveries which is power supply and if the government is serious about delivering quality education, then it should look at improving some of its areas especially power,” said Mr. Kelly.
“All portion of the funding that goes on maintaining electricity flow alone should have been allocated to other important areas like Communications and Internet services.”
“The standard of using technology has improved and we should be looking at putting our budget priorities on ICTC areas. However, due to the power blackout problem, the school continues to spend money on maintaining electricity flow.”
In addition, Wawin National School of Excellence was ranked second in the academic performances out of all secondary schools in the country, which was good news, hence they wanted this year to be free from any hiccups.