Students

The assistance is part of an effort to address the financial constraints that many households are facing in keeping their children in secondary school.

As part of the Skills and Employment for Tongans (SET) Project, the World Bank is supporting the Tongan government to implement the cash transfer programme , with the main recurring payments of TOP250 (USD110) designed to assist with school fees and other educational costs for over 2,000 Tongan high school students.

The Ministry of Education said it believed the timeframe would give sufficient time for communities, families and kava clubs to refresh before they start supporting their students’ transport costs.

The offer comes as part of the COVID-19 Education Cluster Relief to ensure students can attend school, it said.

“A high number of buses are being utilised for transportation to ensure that social distancing is reasonably practiced as per direction from the Ministry of Health.” the Ministry said.

The armed 17-year-old was arrested after the shooting, which happened at the Alexis de Tocqueville school in the town of Grasse, about 40 kilometres from the southern city of Nice.

This time though the brawls occurred during the national mourning period for the late Queen Mother Halaevalu Mata’aho.

During the period of national mourning, the people of Tonga are wearing black and some businesses remain closed.

Two videos of students fighting in public have surfaced on social media.

One video shows students in their school uniforms from two boys’ schools fighting at the main bus stand.

Some members of the public could been seen joining the fracas and throwing punches randomly.

Queen Mata'aho died last weekend at the age of 90 in Auckland and was flown back to Tonga by a Royal New Zealand Airforce Hercules this afternoon.

RNZ reports the royal cortege traveled by road from the airport to the capital with school children lining the streets along the way, some having waited over three hours amid intermittent showers, to pay their respects.

The chair of New Zealand's Tongan Advisory Council Melino Maka said the remarkable scenes remind him of when Queen Salote died.

Reliable sources at the University of Goroka campus told Loop PNG that the fight broke among the faction of Chimbu/Goroka students and the Western Highlands/Enga students.

The source who wanted to remain unanimous because of safety reasons said the disagreement between the students started on Saturday where students attending their inservice training agreed to resume classes today but this did not go down well with other students.

Currently, the main gate at the campus is closed as people are gathering at the gates.