All public schools in Morobe Province will not be charging school fees, project fees or any kind of fees.
Provincial program advisor for education, Keith Tangui, said this directive covers elementary to secondary schools.
Late last year, he announced that all schools that come under the education department will not be charging school fees, while project fees can be collected, as per the provincial education board’s decision.
However, that decision has been amended following a directive from the Education Secretary, Dr Uke Kombra, this morning.
“Provincial education board is the legitimate decision-making body, where we have authorised all schools in Morobe to charge fees but the Secretary wants no more fees to be paid,” said Tangui.
“So we will stop paying fees because the government of the day, our honourable Governor, Songang Luther Wenge, declared in public that schools are going to be free in Morobe.
“Now the national government is saying free. So PEB will not allow schools to charge any more school fees or project fees or parent support fees, or uniform fees, whichever.
“Any kind of fees that schools used to charge is now forbidden.”
Tangui further said if the government does not disburse funding to schools in time, then the Morobe education division will have no choice but to close them down.
The education advisor stressed that the reason behind collecting project and uniform fees is so that schools can meet their operational expenses.
“Our Secretary and Minister are strongly condemning Morobe that you should not charge any fees this year. But I’m going to leave a warning for the Government.
“If the schools run out of money at any time of the year because there is a shortfall in the economy, there’s no money in the country or whatever, the Government will be totally responsible to put the school back on track. How they are going to do it is up to them.”