The Eastern Highlands provincial government is equipping all school inspectors with vehicles to travel to schools to monitor and coordinate teacher performance.
Governor Simon Sia assured school inspectors of this at the presentation of five Suzuki vehicles in Goroka on Wednesday.
Education Department technical vocational education training first assistant secretary, Wilson Garo, Highlands region school inspection coordinator Alois Rema witnessed the presentation.
Pointing out the rollover budgets over the years into 2023 as well and taking special notice that some districts will miss out on the vehicle allocation for now, Governor Sia said they would be looking at buying a vehicle each for 16 school inspectors in eight districts in the province.
As long as our provincial administration is efficiently and prudently run, we can buy two vehicles each for eight districts.
Let us make this our goal and work hard to achieve it. This is the beginning.
Look after these vehicles, use them wisely and for the purpose they are intended for and the provincial government will buy you more vehicles.
Simon Sia, Eastern Highlands Govenor
The provincial education board initiated the procurement of the vehicles, which was endorsed by the former provincial government.
In implementing this initiative, Mr Sia said education had received the second largest share of the K449,307,050 budget which, he stressed, indicated the provincial government’s commitment to the sector.
Mr Rema said issues with transport and accommodation are two fundamental problems that school inspectors face.
I would like to say thank you to the current government and former government for seeing the needs of my inspectors and bringing these vehicles to them.
Rema
He said health, welfare, economic and social welfare are vital and commended the provincial government for prioritizing education as the cornerstone of all other development areas.
Mr Garo shared the same sentiments about education and urged the people of Eastern Highlands to take ownership of the vehicles, pointing out that they were bought with their tax money.
Provincial education adviser Albert Wesley thanked the provincial government for the support. He said the vehicles are mounted with GPS tracking system that will automatically stop their engines at 7pm wherever they are and restart them at 7am every day.
Four vehicles were given to Obura-Wonenara, Okapa, Henganofi and Unggai-Bena districts and one was given to the secondary school inspector Augustine Kupa.