5-7 Students Per Class Don’t Have Chairs

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Students of Samoana high School who watched but didn’t participate in this morning’s protest by the United Citizens of American Samoa said in nearly every classroom at their school, about 5 to 7 students don’t have chairs to sit on.

There are about 30 students to a class.

According to the four male students who were waiting for a bus to go to school, it’s a first come first serve basis as to who gets to sit on a chair.

They said its common for students to take exams sitting on the floor.

One of the teachers at Samoana posted a photo on Facebook of a student sitting on a pile of books during class.

Reports from other high schools and elementary schools tell the same story,

The Pago Pago Elementary School PTA built tables and chairs for their students after the frist two months since the current school year started and there was not enough furniture for each student.

The Manulele Tausala PTA also built desks and chairs for their school.

Director of Education, Vaitinasa Dr. Salu Hunkin Finau told Fono hearings that the budget for desks and furniture is not enough for the increase in student population.

She said students also cause a a lot of damage to the furniture.

In addition the new school buildings did not include funding for new furniture.

The Samoana students who spoke with KHJ News today said they also don’t have enough text books and some books are missing pages.

One of the four admitted the students don’t take care of the text books.

The students said they support the demonstration but they are not taking part because they should be
in class.

There were about 50 Samoana students at the demonstration at the Fagatogo malae this morning.

Close to 100 people, took part including high school and American Samoa Community College students, teachers, government employees, retirees, a business owner and mothers and fathers.

They were protesting a bill to increase the Fono leaders and members salaries by $20,000.

Though the demonstration was planned for 6 am to 8:30am about six members continued their protest under the hot sun past 11 am. Another demonstration is planned for Thursday beginning at 6am, also.at the Fagatogo malae.

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