Makira Education Authority blamed

FORM Six science students at Pawa Provincial Secondary School on Ugi in Makira Ulawa Province have been sent home due to shortage of teachers at the school.

45 students were sent home last week because there was no science teacher to take up the position which has been vacant since January.

Concerned parents and supporters in Kirakira and Honiara took to social media to raise their dissatisfaction with the provincial education authority, while at the same time calling for change to happen.

“I just talk with the teacher coordinating the form six at Pawa and she said that it was a very sad situation,” a concerned Mrs Edith Kaoho said via her Facebook account.

“She said she faced this problem since the beginning of the year. She even went over to Honiara to look for a science teacher. She managed to get one but while on the process of arranging his coming over to Pawa, Honiara High School got hold of this guy and he is now teaching at Honiara High school. “She said searching for a good teacher was not her job. It’s the job of the Chief Education Officer in Kirakira,” Mrs Kaoho said. “She was trying to do her best to help the children. It was a very unfortunate situation. Forty five students of Form six in Pawa were sent back.

“The teacher told me, some of these students were in tears because they do not accept the situation and don’t want to be sent back home. “I appeal to the Education Authority in Kirakira who are responsible in the affairs of Pawa PSS, since the school is under the care of the Education office in Kirakira and the Province of Makira to have more concern over this.

“We do not want our children to be victims just because of our ignorance. So sad. Please get down and do something for our children and this Province,” Kaoho appealed.

“I don’t think we Makira had ran out of human resource especially teachers. I can remember clearly when I was working at the school of education at SINU, a lot of students from Makira were complaining that the education authority in Kirakira have been slack in nurturing young teachers and following up on them in terms of posting them to schools.

“I also remembered that most graduates from SINU did not want to teach under Makira education authority because the process to getting them set up in payroll takes ages. We are losing a lot of young teachers and this is one of the outcomes, teacher shortage,” another concerned man said.

Pawa PSS is not the only school in the province that was having problem with shortage of teachers this year. Waimapura National

Secondary School also faced the same problem which was only resolved at the second week of March this year.

“Education Authority in Makira needs marching orders in this case.

Performance Management system must be enforced right away.

There is no excuse for this. The highest number of graduates from USP and other institutions are those from Education. Common easy, easy type, means poor outcome from our Provincial Secondary school in general,” one parent said.

Attempts to get responses from the Makira Chief Education officer and the Education authority in Kirakira yesterday were all unsuccessful.