3,000 more teachers for Morobe

By GLORIA BAUAI
MOROBE, the country’s biggest province, is on a drive to recruit up to 3,000 teachers to address the shortage it has been facing for years, an official says.
Provincial education adviser Keith Tangui said they hoped to raise the teacher ceiling through the recruitment drive to be undertaken by a six-man team.
“We will start with 500 and work up to 3,000 teachers,” he said.
The team has been allocated K50,000 to travel to education institutions around the country and pick teachers they want.
Tangui said teacher shortage had been a problem for years which had affected the development of education services in the province.
He said most of the recruited teachers would be posted to secondary schools.
Ten junior high schools confirmed last year by Governor Ginson Saonu to start classes this year will have to wait because of the shortage.
“Our main shortage is in secondary schools because they need specialist teachers for certain subjects,” Tangui said.
“University graduates in other fields need to undertake a conversion course to be qualified before teaching in schools in the province,” he said.
“Yes, we are in need of teachers but we still need to be vigilant because education standards fall if the wrong person is in the classroom.”
The provincial education budget submission this year increased from K18 million to K23 million to cater for all programmes.
In previous years, the approved budget was around K16 million.