Teachers arrive in Enga

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Tuesday 26th March 2013

 By ADRIAN MATHIAS

A GROUP of teachers from East New Britain arrived in Enga last week to take up their teaching jobs.

The 21 teachers are being accommodated at the Teachers Transit House in Wabag awaiting their postings, according to an NBC radio report.  

It said 75% of those recruited were experienced, serving teachers who sought release from their respective education authorities and took up the challenge to teach in Enga.

The report said the Enga provincial government had started recruiting teachers from other provinces through its education division to meet the shortfall in numbers in the province.

The 21 teachers were among those who would be filling more than 600 vacant teaching positions in various levels of schools in Enga this year. 

“Enga Governor Peter Ipatas welcomed the teachers to the province in a formal gathering last Friday at the Wabag Primary School,” the report 

said.

Ipatas told the new teachers that education had been his government’s priority in the past 15 years and the vision to develop Enga’s human resource was being achieved.

He said although the national government had adopted Enga’s free education policy, the provincial government still maintained education as one of its priority areas but shifted its focus on providing quality education by building infrastructures, supplying learning material and providing support for 

schools.

Ipatas said he was humbled to see the teachers accepting the challenge to teach in the province and urged them to perform their duties by helping his government to continue to achieve its goal in developing the province’s human resource.

He assured the new teachers that his government would pay them settle-in allowances within the next few days before they were posted to schools in the province.

Enga provincial education director Rewaitin Was said East New Britain was the first province that officers from his division visited and the 21 teachers were the first lot who accepted the challenge to teach in Enga.

He reiterated that officers from the provincial education division would also be travelling to other provinces within the next few weeks attending graduations to recruit both new graduates and serving teachers who were willing to teach in Enga.