Skills lacking in teachers

 TEACHERS in primary schools lack skills to help them teach students how to realise their own potential and use available resources to earn a living.

Omili Primary School headmistress Doreen Boas said education was the “heart beat of human life”.

“Teachers, apart from subjects taught at schools, need to encourage students to realise their potential,” she said.

Boas spent 37 years as a teacher in Lae when the education reform began in 2000. It included the “making a living”  (MAL) subject.

Boas came to realise the usefulness of agriculture when the support services contract facility manager Ken Elonaga stressed the importance of the organisation and what it did to help farmers improve their lives.

“Human life is founded on agriculture therefore with MAL subjects, we can never play around with pupils’ lives with unfounded information, hence engage specialists to go into schools and enrich teachers with applicable skills,” Boas said.