Education boards must carry out teacher discipline

 TEACHER discipline is one of the major concerns in the national education system. 

Over the years, there have been media reports of an increasing number of teachers committing criminal and disciplinary offences. 

There  are  also hundreds of such  cases  involving  teachers that are unreported. 

The discipline of teachers involves certain individuals or educational authorities who are delegated and empowered to take disciplinary actions on teachers involved. These are school inspectors, provincial education advisers  and  provincial education boards. 

When a teacher is alleged to have committed an offence, he/she should be reported to the school inspector or an authorised person to be investigated. 

If the investigation shows that there is sufficient evidence, the teacher must be charged and allowed to respond in seven days. 

The authorised person, after laying the charges against the teacher, is required to compile the responses, investigation reports and statements from witnesses, and submit them to the provincial education board’s disciplinary committee. 

This committee has the power to recommend the relevant penalty to the provincial education board. 

The problem is that many boards and committees are not functioning or have become dormant. 

Although school inspectors and authorised persons perform their duties diligently, the boards fail to conduct hearings or make appropriate decisions on the teachers concerned. 

Of all the 22 boards and committees in the country, Chimbu and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville’s education divisions  have done great over the past years in dealing with teacher discipline. 

Provincial education advisers as  well as provincial administrators need to fix up their education boards to ensure that  discipline is conducted  appropriately in accordance  with policies and laws of the Teaching Service Act. 

Joel Nava

Port Moresby