Teachers’ appointment

Letters

WHILE much has been said about the corrupt practices in the appoinment of teachers in the Highlands, teachers in the Southern Highlands have remained silent over the issue as if nothing is wrong in the province.
Worse yet, the risk of delivering quality education in the province is that there has neither been a permanent provincial education adviser (PEA) nor provincial education board (PEB) installed in the province to manage matters relating to education and teacher appointment in the past two years (2017-2018) till now.
This also confirms that there is no provincial teacher appointing authority to take control of teachers’ appointments.
Accordingly, district education advisers (DEAs) had taken advantage of the situation to take control of teacher appointments outside the Teaching Service Act, 1995 (Consolidated to No. 20 of 1995) and Education Act, 1983 (Consolidated to No. 13 of 1995).
It is a common predicament in every district that the DEAs are seen to be operating district education offices like a private legal consultancy services or a family business where every teaching position comes with a price tag (bribery), while nepotism and bias are other illegal criteria used but with little recognition.
In Southern Highlands, DEAs have continued to abuse and manipulate the appointment process of teachers ever since their positions were created in the country.
Only God knows if these so-called DEAs have been trained to appoint teachers using the Teaching Service Act-sanctioned education vacancy gazette released every year, when they are literally seen to undermine, abuse and hijack the legal teacher appointment procedures.
Much of our school system remains the major instrument and organ for providing educational opportunities for achievement of all-important quality education in the classroom.
Many of our rural schools tend to be unpopular with the recent increase in graduate teachers coming out from many unregistered and substandard teachers’ colleges.
Consequently, many serving teachers have decided to walk out of the classroom because they cannot work under a junior teacher, who has only taught for two years with a sub-standard teaching qualification.
A case never seen or heard in the history of their entire teaching career.

Sori Kagua-Erave
Wake Up Southern Highlands