Parents of children attending the Sevese Morea Primary school in Moresby South met with the school board to discuss solutions on the delay of refurbishment to some classrooms.
The delay of the classrooms has affected grades 4-7 and interrupted learning at the start of the 2023 academic year.
According to Parents and Citizen Meeting Chairman, Robert Laosi, the urgent call for a PNC meeting was to look for solutions for the issue.
“As the PNC chairman I had decided to call an urgent meeting this morning regarding the status of the school. Our school is going through a major development which comes under the initiative of our good Minister, Justin Tkatchenko. But due to the demolishing of the classrooms Minister stated that he will provide tents but that has not arrived and affected the learning of students,” he stated.
In a phone interview with MP Tkatchenko, made a response to the delay.
“There was a meeting last week with the Moresby South District Authority with all board members and teachers about the construction of the new school which is currently built as we speak. We will be providing brand new Marquee tents to cater for the classrooms that are not going to be used.
“Also the elementary school which I built 3-4 years ago there is a lot of empty classrooms for those classes to be filled with the primary school students.
“To the parents, I apologies for any inconvenience caused but we must look at the long term situation, We just paid over 140, 000 for three brand new Marquee tents that have been made and fabricated in Port Moresby so that children can have that facility for temporary classrooms.
“We are always moving one step ahead and frustration from the school and board I can understand the situation but this is all for the long term gain for the benefit of our students and teachers,” said Tkatchenko.
He added that the school had been in a bad state for many years and it is unfit for any student or teacher.
“We have to rebuild these buildings. The standard we are setting for the schools in Moresby South are the highest standards and Sevese Morea should be very happy that we finally got their school under construction, brand new fencing, landscaping, new ablution blocks, teacher facilities and twice as many classrooms.”