Teachers’ college

THE call by the new Goroka Primary School Teachers’ College board for auditing of the college by National Department of Education (NDoE) indicates irregularities among many new teachers’ colleges that have emerged in recent years.
Many new colleges have violated legal auditing procedures that underpin the quality of the college.
In the case of Goroka Primary School Teachers’ College, it was reported that first enrollment started in 2016, well ahead of the compliance auditing process.
Despite the irregularities, the college is now putting pressure on NDoE to fast track the auditing process.
This is against the backlog of the first lot of illegally-recruited and trained teachers expected to graduate at the end of this year.
In my view, the new colleges which have started classes before the approval process should be seen as operating illegally.
This has already breached Section 100 (2) of the Education Act 1983, which clearly states: “A person or authority wishing to establish a permitted school shall apply in the prescribed manner to the departmental head as to his or its intention, and instruction at the permitted school must not commence until a Certificate of Registration from the Departmental Head has been received by the person or authority intending to conduct the permitted school.”
If Goroka Primary School Teachers’ College recruited about 300 students off the street in 2016, there should be a total of 900 students by 2018.
Regrettably, the first batch of 300 students are expected to graduate at the end of 2018. This is the same at Enga Techers’ College and other new colleges around the country.
This would mean 3000 to 4000 sub-standard teachers would be released into the classrooms and teach rubbish.
Sadly, half of these teachers have graduated already, and have taken up teaching positions in many schools around the country.
This is a deliberate man-made educational disaster at the peak of the depleting quality of our country’s education system.
Accordingly, NDoE must be seen to be performing honest audits without fear or favor.
This is in order to highlight issues of non-conformance and challenges to ensure sound teacher training environment is created to produce competent, quality teachers to produce quality students.

Ken Nandawa
Yaporolo Weki