PNG to recruit retired Fiji teachers

PNG Education Minister Nick Kuman says government
plans to recruit retired Fiji Teachers. 

Papua New Guinea Education Minister Nick Kuman has told Parliament that the government is planning to recruit retired Fijian teachers  because the country is facing shortage of teachers.

He announced this after  Anglimp South Waghi MP Joe Koim questioned the  Government to explain if there were plans to have access to teachers elsewhere to meet the shortfall in PNG.

The Education Minister said, because of the Tuition Fee Free (TFF) policy, there is increase in number of  children going to school and more schools have been build but the number of teachers have declined. 

He said the Government was already engaging with Fiji to have their retired teacher come to PNG to help with the management and also teaching in many parts of the country.

“Early this year, I made a deliberate trip to Fiji and met with the Education office in Fiji to discuss a possibility of us engaging teachers in Fiji who retire at the age of 50 and obviously our retirement age here in PNG is 55 so they got five years of experience that we can explore to get them into PNG and I made a deliberate move with the PNG Teachers Association to engage them so there is no industrial misunderstanding in this regard,” Kuman said.

“And there is a continuous dialogue on this and we want to explore the opportunity on this by bringing teachers not going to the mainstream teaching in the classrooms but I am particularly concerned with the management.

“The dialogue continues and the Government will make an announcement that we will bring in teachers from Fiji,” he said.