Absent teachers still paid

 PUBLIC Accounts Committee chairman and Bogia Open MP John Hickey is appalled by teachers staying away from school but remaining on the payroll.

Hickey expressed concern when directing questions to Madang provincial education adviser, Moses Sarikey during a three-day public accounts hearing last week.

He said there were complaints from teachers not only in his electorate but elsewhere that a huge number of teachers on the payroll had never showed up at their schools and that some schools were being subsidised yet they did not exist.

In response, Sarikey said some examples were elementary schools in the province.

He said of the 803 registered elementary schools, 483 were not open because of the lack of teacher training.

“Many of these schools are registered but teacher training is dragging behind as we do not have adequate teachers’ colleges to train the bulk of these elementary teachers to take up created and funded positions,” he said.

He said most of those schools were in remote places.

Hickey said a school opened in his electorate several years ago but did not have one student passing onto high school, which raised the question of quality.

He said the elementary school system was a failure, with the National Executive Council deciding to do away with the system.

“Despite NEC’s decision to do away with the elementary system and in spite of its effort in integrating it into the normal community school system, we continue to ignore and continue with this nonsense.”