Probe delays with teachers’ benefits

GROWING up as a son of a primary school teacher prior to and after Independence in 1975 had been a privileged opportunity, especially under the Australian colonial administration.
Being a teacher at that time was easy.
When it came to weekend shopping, government-provided transportation was available to assist teachers in rural schools go to town to do shopping.
For Christmas holidays, chartered beechcraft aircrafts were made available to fly teachers and their dependents home and government vehicles were on stand-by at the airstrips to take teachers home to the villages.
The same services were made availabile to take teachers back to the schools they taught at.
From one’s childhood experience, that had been between the then Girua airstrip in Northern to Finschhafen in Morobe.
This is the efficiency of the colonial administration at the time when there were hardly any indigenous university graduates, no computerised office systems and administration, no computerised payroll system in the Education Department, Finance Department and the banks, and hardly any expensive office complexes for comfort and decency for the colonial education administrators to work in.
Professional life as an educationist was respected and enjoyed.
Today’s education administration that has been modernised and is expected to administer teachers’ affairs that include transfer, promotions, salary entitlements, leave pays and travel arrangements etc, efficiently.
However, these services are not readily available.
The administrative system is deeply in chaos, showing incompetency, malfunctioning and simultaneously filled with many officials who pursue corrupt financial deals to exploit teachers.
It creates unnecessary inconveniences and miseries for these specialised groups of professional civil servants.
The headquarters of the Education Department at Fincorp Haus in Waigani, Port Moresby, should be ashamed to see teachers crowding at the office premises because of their failures to provide teachers their respective entitlements on time.
Why is such incompetency an annual occurence?
What is the Education minister and secretary doing about this inefficiency and prolonged delays in this computer age where all administrative matters are at the press of a button?
Teaching is a very important, unique and specialised profession.
Teachers educate the nation’s children and prepare the next generation to carry the nation into the future.
Why should they be made to stand out in the sun and rain just because some incompetent bureaucrats in Waigani or in the respective provincial headquarters cannot get their jobs done on time?
This cannot go on.
It is time the system starts rolling.
Papua New Guineans are already sick of such deliberate delayed tactics played on our teachers to squeeze cash from them.
The teachers have suffered enough.
What kind of society are we creating?
Is it a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back” society?
This syndrome has to stop and the top management of the Education Department do it immediately.
As reported in The National on Monday, certain Education administration staff at Fincorp Haus were duping teachers for financial favours which is unethical, lacks professionalism and is simply corrupt.
This is not good enough and as such, requires immediate investigation from the executive management.
Human parasites and leeches in such important service provider organisations must be eliminated forthwith.
Over to you, minister and secretary.

Emmanuel Allen Mungu
Son of Finschaffen,
Pom