Teachers suspended from payroll

 

By PEARSON KOLO

MORE than 10 teachers in the Western Highlands Province have been auto-suspended from the payroll and many more are expected to follow in the Highlands Region.
The auto-suspension of teachers from payroll is carried out every year on teachers who do not fill out the resumption duty forms at the start of the school, indicating whether they are at their assigned teaching venues or not.
 
The affected teachers in WHP have, however, complained that while out on the streets, their schools and classes of students are without teachers and missing important lessons.
Regional Secretary for PNG Teachers Association Highlands Region John Melson, who has been confronted by the suspended teachers, said the auto suspension exercise carried out by the Teaching Services Commission would have a direct negative impact on the current government’s education policies in the country.
Mr Melson said yesterday that the frontline key players in the education of this country were affected with the Teaching Services Commission (TSC) with many schools and students starting to feel the effect.
 
“Whether the Teaching Services Commission and the National Department of Education (NDoE) suspend 14,000 or less than that, it will still affect learning and education in many schools throughout the country,” Mr Melson said.
However, the Acting Chairman for the Teaching Services Commission Baran Sori in a letter to the Editor, run in the Post -Courier, said auto suspension was a genuine cleansing exercise, carried out to make sure that teachers were physically staying in their respective schools and teaching.
 
Mr Sori stated that the number of teachers who would be possibly auto suspended from the payroll had decreased from 14, 000 to 8000 and still decreasing.
But the PNGTA Highlands Regional office maintains that the auto suspension exercise is affecting many schools and the education of the children because the TSC and NDOE are overlooking the normal procedures in disciplining teachers.
“Administrative processes like disciplinary charges and force inspection against serving teachers as specified in the TSC Acts have been bypassed,” Mr Melson stressed.
“Suspending a teacher is illegal unless he or she is charged and proven guilty but without that no one has any legal right to suspend a teacher.”
Mr Melson told the TSC and the Education Department to prove that they had exhausted the set provisions before suspending teachers from pay.