Commission failing teachers

Letters

WITH the never-ending salary issues faced by hundreds of teachers each year, the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) has never found any solution to address the teachers’ salary saga over the years.
The TSC had even failed to engage some of its PhD and masters degree holders to conduct a basic fact-finding research on why teachers continue to experience salary issues every year and rectify the issue permanently.
It appears salary issues facing teachers are a norm more blended to the PNG education calendar or the education curriculum with no limits and boundaries.
The TSC cannot continue to undermine and neglect the very important issue that underpins teachers’ welfare and well-being and most importantly the quality of education delivered in the classroom.
This only concludes that TSC is incompetent and does not have any standalone policies that would capture the procedures and guide the manner in which salary issues can be appropriately managed all year around.
We cannot continue to read headlines on social media or on the two dailies relating to teachers not on the payroll, be it serving or graduate teachers teaching in remote areas of the country.
If it was in the private sector, the TSC would have been made redundant and officers terminated for non-performance.
Most importantly it compromises the welfare of its employees and their families and has a direct link in quality output in the production line when it fails to stimulate productivity.
Effective teachers are highly committed and care about their students and therefore need supportive working conditions to maintain these positive attitudes.
Working conditions affect teachers’ ability to provide quality education.
The TSC should increase the number of officers in each region or provinces, they must find time to travel to remote schools and collect sufficient information/data.
They should reach out to provinces and provide names of all registered and unregistered teachers colleges in the country.
There are evidences of teachers who had graduated from unregistered colleges moving into provinces such as Gulf, Western and West Sepik, targeting remote teaching positions.
The provincial education board (PEB) in few of these provinces fail to make quality checks before assigning them with teaching positions in their endeavor to post teachers to some very remote schools in the province.
These are the teachers who are inflating the number of teachers not on the payroll every year.
The TSC knows better than anyone that a country’s nation building lies in the hands of its teachers.
Teachers give a lot of time for our school children – sometimes students are getting more time than the time teachers spend with their families.
Thus, in this difficult and unpromising working conditions, do we have a heart for these teachers who work all day and during the night?
Teachers are the promoters of the government’s catch phrase ‘no child left behind’’ policy.
I call on the Government to decommission the TSC for failing our teachers for far too long.
The Education Department can operate without the TSC.

Ken Nandawa,
Bush Education Advisor

2 comments

  • TSC so called officers or bosses from the Commmisioners down to teaboy and cleaners lack good customers service. They will hardly say hi or give glad a smile. They are full of pride and arrogance yet their job performances are very poor and below standards. Some can’t even write good correspondences in letter and emails. Government must abolish TSC. It’s a bunch of stumbling blocks officers.

    • I really commend and appreciate the quality of teachers who taught my lot during pre and post Independence years. They are the reason why I can write and speak good English. May God Almighty bless their souls wherever they maybe.

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