UoG to focus on teachers

By LUKE KAMA
HIGHER Education Minister Nick Kuman says a Cabinet submission will be made to ensure the University of Goroka (UoG) focus only on training teachers.
Kuman said this in Parliament last week when debating on the 2018 annual management report for the Education Department tabled by the Education Minister Joseph Yopyyopy.
Kuman, who was the former education minister, said he made the decision to revert to the Standard-Based Curriculum and the 1-6-6 education structure because the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) curriculum and the 3-6-2 structure was not producing quality.
“I have seen that and I am happy to say that we are now reverting to the old system,” he said.
“One of the important thing for delivering quality education in the country is for us to have quality and highly trained teachers.
“It is concerning that the University of Goroka, who is supposed to be training teaches, has extended its training into other professions in business and medicine or health.
“This needs to be changed and I will be making a submission to Cabinet to have UoG restructured and focused only on training teachers.
“We need one university to focus only on teacher training to ensure we have highly skilled and qualified teachers to in our schools.”
Kuman’s proposal was also supported by Petroleum Minister Kerenga Kua and National Planning Minister Richard Maru.
Kua said UoG must only focus on teacher training and should train primary as well as secondary and high school teachers.
Meanwhile, Maru suggested that there should be a benchmark set for teachers.
He said the minimum requirement for teachers in primary schools must be a Bachelor’s Degree whilst high schools should be Master’s.