BY BEN BILUA
Gizo
THE Board of Beulah Provincial Secondary School has established and passed two policies aiming at promoting equal access to education and also welfare of students during their recent meeting.
School Principal, Frank Nagu explained that the equal access policy focuses on students whose parents are financially incapable to live up to the pressure of paying school fees.
“We came to realise that some students fall behind in terms of paying school fees. Most of these students comes from financially incapable background.
“So, we establish this policy to help students by way of doing small jobs for the school and wages will be leverages on school fee. For example, a student can plant 300 mounts of potato because she/he unable to pay his/her school fee which the main source of revenue to buy foods for the school. Student can still attend school while finishing his/her task. In doing so, we will not send students home due to school fee issue,” he explains.
Nagu said the welfare policy is looking at improving the school’s ration.
He explained that students will be required to bring in 20kg rice, 20kg potato and cassava at the beginning of the semester along with quarter of their school fees.
“The board agreed that Beulah will be paying quarterly school fee – meaning the full amount of school fee will be divided into each term and students are required to bring in the quarterly amount after their holidays.
“The board also agreed that students will bring foods as listed above at the beginning of the year and after June holidays.
“The food contributions will help students ration while waiting for the other batch of school fees on the other term,” Nagu said.
Principle Education Officer of Western Province, Freedom Tozaka said the policies demonstrates how school boards struggle to make sure schools keep their doors open as assistance from national government continues to decrease.
He adds that the policies will help parents to prepare in advance before beginning of each semesters.
