Pagelio calls on provinces to submit teachers’ resumption forms

EDUCATION secretary Dr Joseph Pagelio has called on all schools and provincial education divisions to ensure their teachers’ resumption of duty summary sheets (RoDSS) forms are forwarded urgently to the Education headquarters.
Dr Pagelio said this would avoid unnecessary and prolonged suspension from payroll that comes into effect tomorrow. 
In a statement released earlier this week, Dr Pagelio said a total of 6,391 teachers would be suspended from payroll tomorrow (pay seven) for not submitting their RoDSS forms after resuming on Jan 25.
The number of teachers to be suspended by regions are: Highlands (2,104), Momase (1,618), Southern (1,408) and New Guinea Island (1,261).
“By law denominator, all teachers are required to complete the resumption of duty forms on the first day of school and continue to receive assumed pays for the first four or five fortnights. The resumption forms are then verified and endorsed before they are sent to the payroll branch to register that the teacher has actually taken up duty on the position he or she was appointed to,” Dr Pagelio said.
He said all teachers were automatically suspended from payroll during the vacation period last year and returned to the payroll on the commencement of this school year.
“Nine weeks from Jan 25, the date teachers officially resumed duties, a total of 35,647 teachers have been recorded to have resumed out of a total of 42,038 teachers on the payroll.”
The list of teachers to be suspended has already been made available to the provincial education offices and respective divisions to follow up and take appropriate actions to get their teachers back on the payroll.
The teachers to be suspended are those who have resumed duty but have not submitted their RoDSS forms, have resigned, are on study leave and who have not been appointed by their provincial education boards.
“This annual exercise is a check and balance to ensure that those teachers who do not resume teaching duties do not get paid,” Dr Pagelio said.
He, however, said teachers suspended from the payroll would be placed back on the payroll upon receipt of their RoDSS forms.
Dr Pagelio also indicated that the resumption forms must be checked and signed by the head teachers, principals and managers and forwarded to the provincial education office and the teaching divisions of the department for verification.