Report teachers, parents told

PARENTS and guardians have been urged to report teachers who are consistently absent or charge fees for remedial classes, an official says.
Teaching Service Commission (TSC) chairman Samson Wangihomie told The National that many parents were going to the media to raise concern but the right place to report such matters was with TSC.
Some concerned parents raised their concerns that some schools in the National Capital District were charging fees for weekend classes.
Wangihomie said having remedial classes and weekend classes was an arrangement between parents, teachers and the school.
He said for normal working hours, a teacher should not charge students and parents.
Meanwhile, Waigani Primary school head teacher Moses Modakewau said the school had run remedial classes in the past and this year was no different.
He was responding to a media report that said Waigani Primary School was charging fees for weekend classes.
Modakewau said it was the parents’ request that they wanted weekend class for the grade eight students and agreed to pay K5 which was not much compared to other private businesses or individuals who charged over K150.
“Since the parents agreed, the teachers conducted remedial classes only for those students who were interested.”
Modakewau said it was optional.
He said other schools had similar arrangements.
He said the weekend was considered “after hours” and teachers sacrificed their family time to be in the classroom for the students and it was disappointing that they were being made to look selfish in the media.
Modakewau said the money collected by the teachers was used for teachers transport as almost all of their teachers lived outside the school.
He said if the authorities decide to stop remedial classes this would affect students.