A total of 27 students will be severely affected by the discontinuation of the New Ireland Government’s Governor’s School of Excellence Program.
This comes after
Lihir Royalties that is the major source of funding have been transferred to
the Namatanai and Kavieng District Authorities.
The implications
for the students include their parents not being able to afford the
International Standard Education School fees, Securing spaces in other NIP
schools will be difficult as they are already full, safe and timely transfer of
students academic record remains a risk, unless it is managed well by higher
Authorities such as the head of the Department of Education and Provincial
Education Board.
To help remedy
the foreseeable implications the New Ireland Government during its Provincial
Executive Council meeting on Tuesday moved to financially support the current
batch of Scholarship students until they complete their Education at the OLSH
International School.
The Governor’s
School of Excellence was established in 2019. The program is part of the seven
components of the New Ireland Government’s Free and Subsidized Education
Policy. This program has two key components School of Excellence and Teacher
Excellence Program.
The goal of the
program is to increase the level of student’s academic performance and teacher performance in the province. Which
has been successfully achieved and ideally this Government wishes to continue
these scholarships but funds used for
Education subsidies and other projects were transferred illegally over to the
two District Development Authorities making it impossible to sustain budgeted
projects and programs.
The Scholarships
are offered to the top performing primary and secondary school students from
the outer and more rural parts of the province to undertake the excellence
program implemented or run in an international standard learning environment.
Updating the
Provincial Executive Council, CEO for Government Subsidy Mactil Bais said
“Since 2019 the New Ireland Government has gone way beyond its target by
issuing 94 scholarships, almost 100% more.”
In 2020 nine
pioneer scholars graduated with a grade 12 certificate. “ They all performed
exceptionally well and secured placements in various Tertiary Institutions
across the country.
New Ireland is
now ranked one of the top five performing provinces with its grade 10’s ranked 3rd
in the country and grade 12’s ranked 5th
in the country.
This is a big
improvement from its ranking of second last in the country 10 years ago.
NIP Media Unit
Picture Caption: Governor
Sir J with Students from the OLSH Governors school of Excellence during a
recent meeting at the New Ireland Assembly.
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