Teachers not on payroll face scrutiny: Chairman

By Glenda Awikiak
THE Teaching Service Commission will scrutinise the records of teachers claiming to have not been paid before they can be put back on the payroll, says chairman Baran Sori.
He said the teachers were taken off the payroll because of discrepancies in their appointments by the provincial education boards.
“The TSC is aware of the claims of teachers taken off payroll and will have to confirm the figure, the names and verify each teacher properly. Some have been put back on the payroll but it is just the few that we have to verify first and that will take a while,” he said.
Some schools in Western Highlands, for example, said classes were being affected by teachers not attending classes.
Sori said the verification process would take a while. It will include investigating the teachers’ documents, including their qualifications, the teacher training institutions they attended, names, schools they
were posted to and the positions they are holding, and who appointed them.
Sori said teachers must be graduates from recognised teachers’ colleges.
Primary school teachers have to be at least grade 12 school leavers and their names and signature have to match what the Measurement Service Unit has.
“People are using the technology to forge and change qualification documents as certificates to enter schools and jobs. That is why the quality of jobs and education has dropped,” Sori said. On claims by teachers in Morobe that their pay had been deducted, Sori said deductions were done only for very good reasons, such as punctuality and attendance from Monday to Friday.
Principal adviser Maini Mike Ugaia said the names of 53 elementary teachers, 35 primary teachers and 21 secondary schools in the National Capital District had been submitted by the commission to the payroll division for pay deductions because of absenteeism in the first quarter of the 2018 academic year.