Recruiters must pick qualified trainees

IT is sad that many of our tea­chers are recruited through the wantok system or bribery.
One cannot tell if they are Grade 6 or 10 dropouts as they provide colourful resumes and certificates.
Many of these trainees enter teachers colleges for the sake of being employed and to get paid.
After graduating, regardless of their level of skills, they come out to teach our future prime ministers, lawyers and doctors.
I was surprised to read in The National about Grade 8 students in Southern Highlands doing poorly in English.
Are they being taught properly in schools?
We cannot blame the outcomes-based education system or mobile phones.
Teachers play a big role in developing a child’s mind and properly equipping them at an early age so that they are able
to proceed to the next level.
Teachers need to be well equipped before standing in front of students.
Everything is in English and students need to have a solid foundation in the subject.
If students are taught garbage, they will learn garbage.
Trainee teachers were and are being recruited blindly without realising the long-term effects.
The country needs qualified human resource to drive it forward and recruitment officers must realise that the wantok syste­m or bribery is doing more harm.
If trainee teachers are being recruited without a thorough screening,  then the end result is our children are being fed with garbage.
This vicious cycle continues and the country ultimately suffers.

Moses Wanpis
Via email