Remote island of Papua New Guinea without teacher for four months

The National reports that one of the most remote schools in the East Sepik province of Papua New Guinea is in desperate need of an elementary teacher.

The capital of East Sepik is Wewak. Wei Elementary School is on Wei Island in the Wewak Islands – three and a half hours away from Wewak by boat!

The school has been without a teacher for more than four months since the previous female teacher left due to family reasons. The community is appealing to the provincial education office in Wewak to find a teacher so that their children can continue their education.

The school was established in 2010 and has more than 80 students for elementary and year one. The only government service on Wei Island is the elementary school and plans are underway to have a permanent classroom.

In other remote regions, quality teacher accommodation hopes to attract teachers to isolated locations. For example, two new teacher houses for permanent teaching staff were opened last week in the East Sepik province to accommodate teachers at the remote and isolated Karau Primary School (The National, June 27).

The teacher houses are fully furnished with three bedrooms, toilet, shower, kitchen, refrigerator, stove, and a solar panel to complement the electricity system. Quality houses would attract teachers to remote schools in Angoram to ensure that the education sector doesn’t lose prospective teachers to lucrative liquefied natural gas projects in the region.

Plans are also underway, reported The National, to install telephone and internet capabilities in all teacher houses to cater specifically for their banking requirements, but also for communication and networking. The arrangement hopes to include a partnership with aviation organizations to airlift teachers for their pay runs into Wewak (the capital of East Sepik province) and back every two weeks.

Work has commenced on the construction of the first 40 houses for teachers and five double classrooms in Angoram. The second phase of the project will continue until all primary schools in Angoram have appropriate classrooms and quality teacher housing with telecommunications.

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