‘Better goodies must come with policies’

By SALLY TIWARI
TEACHERS from Baruni Primary School, outside Port Moresby, have called on the government to provide better incentives for teachers in the country if it is to implement the free education policy.
Grade 7 teacher Paul Maima, senior teachers Gemoa Lohia and Henry Bolia said the free-education policy introduced by the O’Neill government was likely to create a big influx of students.
Maima said Lohia and Bolia expressed concern that this would increase the workload of teachers in all schools so they must be properly rewarded.
They appealed to the government to honour the hard work and commitment of teachers in the country by providing better incentives if it wanted to achieve the goal of providing quality education to the people.
The teachers made this call yesterday in a meeting on their first day at work this year.
Maima said two other head teachers, Ano Gavera and Arine Gaudi, encouraged the teachers to give their best and be committed to educating the students and serving the people.
He said the teachers of Baruni Primary School were pleased with last year’s Grade 8 examination results.
They said the majority of their students doing Grade 8 last year would be going on to do Grade 9 at Badihagwa Secondary School this year.