Cheating teachers

The National Main Stories

By JINA AMBA
EDUCATION secretary Dr Uke Kombra says 620 elementary school teachers have been deregistered after it was found that they had enrolled in teachers colleges through fraudulent means.
He confirmed yesterday in Port Moresby that education department officials discovered after a thorough vetting of teachers’ qualifications that the teachers had used other people’s certificates to enter the teachers training institutions.
“A week ago we deregistered 620 elementary teachers around the country,” he said.
“We found that 620 of them had fraudulently enrolled themselves in (teacher training) colleges.”
He said it was later discovered after proper vetting of their education background that the certificates they used to enter the colleges were not genuine.
“They altered certificates to get into teachers colleges and be trained as teachers,” he said.
“They will no longer be teachers in our education system.
“We are very serious in the department of education to ensure that we give quality education to every child.
“And the teachers are a very critical and important element in the teaching and learning of children.”
Kombra said the department had to make sure that anyone wanting to become a teacher should achieve the level of academic excellence needed to be trained as one.
“They must have the right attitude in the classroom, so they can teach children to be good citizens and have a good future,” he said.
“We are very serious about ensuring that we have quality teacher training programmes in colleges and ensure that those who graduate and come into the classroom have to perform their responsibilities as expected of them.
“This is all for the benefit of our children.”
The 620 teachers:

  • WILL receive deregistration certificates terminating their employment as teachers in a school under the national education system;
  • CANNOT be appointed to any teaching position by all appointing authorities;
  • CANNOT be readmitted by the Teaching Service Commission; and,
  • TAKEN off the government payroll.

The 2021 academic year has begun with the Government instructing all schools to enroll all students irrespective of whether they have paid any fees. The Government is paying 63 per cent of student fees while the parents will foot the remaining 37 per cent.

17 comments

  • Thank you Education Secretary for the job well done. You can as well check and screen the primary and secondary teachers who are currently on payroll as well. For surely, some of your teaching staff in each level of education are coming into the education system through the windows, and truly indeed some of us are good witnesses of this.
    I as genuine citizen of this developing country I don’t really like these type of teachers because they give rubbish to the student and demote education standard as a consequence, the country is slowly regressing instead of progressing. Teachers are the primary and root cause of every knowledgeable person in this country and it is a crucial part of Integral Human Development. Therefore, teachers must come into the education system through merit. The bonus is now on Education Secretary’s to properly check and recruit the teachers in every level of education throughout the nation

  • We have a lot of teachers here in Madang that is concerning the same sort. A lot of Primary School Teachers, especially in the urban parts of Madang are now teaching. Please could the education department come to investigate more on this?

  • My questions:
    1.Who is responsible to sign to become a teacher?
    2.How do Education department found out as a fraudulent?
    3.How can 620 elementary school teachers refined?
    4.Whom are we going to blame;the elementary school teachers or Education department workers?
    5.What is the final solution for this criminal activities since every schools of country has already stated?

  • Thankyou very much for riding of unrecognized elements embedded in the system.
    Request your top management to further update the rest who are still hanging in the education system.
    Also Your office is requested to fast track the restoration of successful teachers still pending on with their documents Audit

  • A sad state of our national education affairs. Our children spend a good part of their quality time in school.Imahine ,the attitudes such individuals bring into the school environment. The nation deserves better.Please remove these people who have cheated their way through obtaining their teaching certificates .

  • Well done. By the way does that 63% include with students under HECAS attending Pom Business College?

  • Most of us are graduated as teachers but few are chosen to be the teachers. Most are committed teachers but few are working for salaries only, so it’s a great idea for Education Department to screen teachers around the country. A concern teacher.

  • Sorry yah, these signs of turn around from failures and to restorations. Put them through by some screening measures.

  • I support the secretary for the cleaning process. Do it nation wide. Standard has dropped is the cause of teachers with very low abilities. A good example is they can’t communicate in English or can not do a good lesson plan….

    Engage a task force…to go nation wide…I want to be the member of the task force for this exercise ….can be called Operation Weeding Teachers..

    Secretary so many corruption is done;

    1. enrollment at teachers college
    2. Poor inspection system
    3. Teacher appointment be done on GPA for NG
    4. Teachers appointment be made on performance
    5. Lack standard curriculum especially syllabus and teachers guide
    6. No SBC text book for student for 7 subjects challenging teachers in planning teaching and learning

    There are more to investigate secretary…

  • Thanks Secretary Kombra,
    I am glad the clean up is taking place.
    I am also sure that a clean up of primary, secondary and TVET Divisions will also find that anything up to 5% are frauds or in other ways criminals and need to be de-registered.
    Dr-registration means these persons cannot be engaged to teach in any schools or educational institutions in PNG including private institutions.
    I know as during my 22 years with NDOE &TSC I had to check the credentials of many cases reported to us and believed there were many more but at that time we did not have the manpower to do a thorough check.
    Thank you again for the effort and continue the clean up.
    Michael Pearson
    Chairman Bougainville Education Board and
    Retire Chairman of the Teaching Service Commission.

  • Job well done secretary, Dr. Uke Kombra. Please do the same with the Primary and secondary levels too. There’s a lot to be done in this cleaning process. As a concern citizen, I pray that God will bless and guide you and your team in weeding out corruption in the education department.

  • Sad and unfortunate, end of it all our children will come out the loser, we can’t wind the clock back so they go back and learn what is supposed to be learnt.
    We can only hope that what we do today will benefit them going to the future.

    Thanks for opening your eyes now and trying to rectify this issue. We should demand that all departments check their own staffs and see if they actually met the requirements to be employed in your department.
    The government demands service delivery to be the utmost priority to reach our citizens and it is delivered through qualified citizens and dedicated individuals.

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