Acute accommodation problem leaves students living in science labs

Transgogol Secondary School in Madang is faced with a critical accommodation problem, forcing about a 100 male students to use two science laboratories as alternate dormitories.

Madang-based reporters who visited the school yesterday witnessed male students cramped up in the two science classrooms plus two small office spaces between the two laboratories.

Each of the laboratory caters for roughly fifty students whilst 10-15 boys fit into each of the small office cubicles. There is very limited space for movement as mosquito nets are being pitched all over the rooms, each shared by four to five boys. The sight is disturbing. The living condition is appalling. It is an environment conducive enough for airborne diseases to spread like wildfire.

The laboratories are opened with no louver blades, leaving the boys prone to mosquito infection.

According to one of the boys; “This is not a new thing. Boys have been sleeping in this lab for many years. There are no lights in this classrooms so we use personal torchlight or solar light to study in the night. There is barely any room for walking. As you can see, the rooms are all taken up by our mosquito nets, beddings and bags.

“When there is a heavy rain and it gets windy, we get wet.”

Nearby, another group of grade 12 boys, about 25 of them; are being accommodated in a vacant three- bedroom teacher’s house.

The boys said they are not the first group to be living in the science labs. Some grade 12 boys said they have been sleeping in the lab since they started grade 9.

Jeffery Michael, a grade 12 student said the place is overcrowded but at least they have a roof over their heads.

“We accept the situation because we are here to learn. Even though we don’t have dormitories, we are not worried. The big thing is we are here to learn. To you outsiders who come here and see our living condition, you will say this does not look good; but to ourselves, this is more than enough. We are content. So long as we have a place to sleep,” young Jeffery said.

Even though they are content with the current arrangement, they are looking forward to the day when they can move into a proper dormitory.

School principal, Niviriti Ivan said enrolment this year has gone up, especially for the boys; and the only dormitory they have is already full with six to seven boys sharing one cubicle.

“The school board and administration had decided to erect a new male dormitory which will help to ease the situation regarding accommodation for the boys’ population. Erection of the new dormitory, according to a contractor, it should take around one and a half months to complete the dormitory. We started the foundation work already by cleaning the area,” Ivan said,

The principal said there is a lot of room for improvement at the school but added funding to be a problem.

He said, “There are plans for expansion of classrooms but it all goes down back to funding. Currently, there is no funding to Transgogol Secondary, I can say since its establishment after Buka Malai and Nixon Duban [former Madang MP]. Our facilities are deteriorating.”

Ivan confirmed that Transgogol has been receiving Tuition Fee Free funding, however; that goes to students’ rations, administration costs plus other running costs for the school.

Quarterly, the school receives just a little over four hundred thousand kina but that is not enough to run boarding institutions like Transgogol that has a student population of close to one thousand. He said the school does charge school fees according to its needs.

“According to advice from the Education Secretary, schools are allowed to charge up to one thousand kina only in project fees. For this year, the parents in their first PCA meeting has decided on K1000 for boarders and K500 for day students. In order for a student to be accepted for enrolment at the beginning of the year they must pay up to fifty percent of the total school fees, which is K500 for boarding students and K250 for day students.

“In their second meeting yesterday [Sunday], the parents have decided that money collected so far will go towards the erection of a new dormitory for the boys and the purchase of school uniforms which should be delivered next week by the supplier.

Transgogol is a level 9 school with 28 teachers and a total enrolment of 989 but students are still coming.

Commenting on the current situation with students being accommodated in the science labs, the principal said the school is trying its very best to build a dormitory quickly so the students can be accommodated properly.

“We all know science lab is not the building that should accommodate students. It is a building that should help students learn. For students to be accommodated in the science labs is not according to the policy so we have to remove them and dormitory is the only place we should put them in.

“The education department knows, especially in Madang Province; know that the students of Transgogol are using science lab as dormitory. The current director knows that, the current inspector, secondary; knows that. The current inspector secondary was the former principal of this school and during his time here, the students have been sleeping in that lab and he knows that,” the principal said.

Ivan joined Transgogol High School in 2021 but the problem goes back to 2016 and 2017.