Teacher student ratio

IT is pleasing to know as an educator that the Government aims to improve teacher-student ratio to 1:30 by 2050. Eight years on, and for a number of reasons as a technical officer on the ground, I am skeptical of some of its strategies employed to attain Aim 1.17.2.15: “Have a Teacher-Student Ratio of 1:30”.
The first being Government’s drive in mass educating teachers at teacher training institutions.
The problem with this is that it raises the issue of quality of graduate teachers.
Have they met all the perquisites of writing a bachelor of education/diploma in teaching paper adequately to be deemed as qualified?
In our haste to meet demand, the country might compromise the quality of its educators, subsequently lowering the education standard.
Needless to say, the Government is already into mass teacher production.
This now begs the question of the infrastructural requirements to cater for these professionals.
Are there teachers’ houses and classrooms for the ever-increasing enrolments and graduate teachers?
Is the National Department of Education working with head teachers and principals to utilise the tuition fee free infrastructure component to address this demand?
Are these principals and head teachers aware of this aim and others of Pillar number one?
Another strategy proposed by the Government to hire foreign teachers in order to alleviate the shortfall, comes with its own risks and disadvantages.
Economically, is it cost beneficial to the country?
Will these teachers go out to remote high schools/secondary schools? What about the security of these officers in a country that has a problem of gun control and the bad publicity that may come should anything happen to them.
Does it have the potential to rekindle the colonial “yes masta” feeling within the teaching fraternity?
Where is the justification for treating these expatriates’ on a different pay grade when national teachers’ welfare have not been adequately addressed?
These are some questions which need to be answered before embarking on the recruitment drive.
Nevertheless, PNG Vision 2050 is a good architectural design for the country.
However, architects do not
build their own designs.
They supervise the builders.
NDOE should come down to schools to involve teachers, parents and students to achieve the goals of the human development, gender, youth and people empowerment pillars.

Jackson Korave