PNG needs more teachers

ENROLLMENT has jumped to 1.9 million students in elementary, primary and high schools and secondary schools as a result of the Government’s tuition fee free policy.

The policy implementation has meant an extra 800,000 students, according to Papua New Guinea Teachers Association (PNGTA) general secretary Ugwalubu Mowana. He said yesterday that the increase in enrollment was putting a huge strain on the 48,000 teachers currently serving nationwide.

Mr Mowana said PNG needed some 200,000 more teachers to ease the teaching workload, adding that the 2100 teachers graduating each year was just not enough. He said that the issues highlighted above affected good learning and must be addressed for the good of quality education.

His comments come as the PNGTA prepares for its 2014 triennial congress to be held in Madang Province on September 15-19. The theme of the congress is "Quality teacher for quality education".

Guest speakers and officials invited to participate have been asked to base their presentations around the theme. Mr Mowana said participation by stakeholders would help raise greater awareness on the importance of quality teachers for quality education.

Those invited are expected to present papers that should help the government policy planners and law makers see how best quality education could be achieved. "Education forms the very fundamental pillar of any society. A nation is only as good as its educated citizens and human resources," Mr Mowana said.

PNG’s competitiveness can enable PNG to produce best human resources to work anywhere in the world. The PNGTA acknowledges that quality education is a basic right for every child

"Teachers are very important stakeholders in the whole education process. Education is a very important road map that cannot be simply ignored. Because of its importance, global leaders together with PNG included it as goal number two in the United Nations Millennium Summit Declaration, commonly known now as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The MDG commits PNG and 190 other nations to achieve universal primary education by Year 2015.

This means by next year, PNG together with the other nations would hope to have children everywhere complete a full course of primary schooling. "As it is right now, PNG seems to be notoriously lagging behind.

"It is imperative for all relevant state agencies to move speedily to ensure PNG fulfils its international commitments in achieving universal education," Mr Mowana said.