Students and staff of the Warangoi Secondary School in East New Britain Province officially ended the 2022 academic year today.
Principal Mrs. Naomi Vuvu expressed how grateful and happy she was with how well both students and staff performed throughout this academic year despite the school facing a number of challenges.
Vuvu said one of the challenges faced was the project fees as there were not enough funding coming from parents to whom most failed to pay the full amount required. Though this was a let down from the parents, students were still allowed to complete the year.
“Apart from our struggle with fees, the drought season was another issue for the school and the province as a whole. With our water-well dried up and our water tanks running low, we decided to shut down the school by Week 7; however, thankfully the rainy season began so students remained.”
Following that same week, the school also received the payment for the final quarter of the Government Tuition Fee Subsidy. An amount of K194, 000 was paid in the last quarter.
Vuvu also said the school is now looking forward to next year as there will be a number of projects that will be introduced come 2023 including new FODE classes, a 4 in 1 classroom, and two duplex teachers’ houses.
“Once our FODE classes come into place, we will be giving priority to our Grade 11s and 12s to upgrade their marks before moving to the next grade and to a tertiary institution as per the decision from the Provincial Education Office.”
However, the school will need funding before construction work on these projects can take place. At the moment, the school has not received any funds from the district authority yet.
“For this year and the previous years, we have been managing whatever money we have to fund our school and I just hope that next year, we can be able to receive some funds from the district, especially from the DSIP funds.”
Nevertheless, Vuvu has hope that the school will be funded well next year having seen that this school year ended on a good note, especially with outstanding funds for this year eventually coming in.
School will resume on the 30th of January 2023.