Retired teachers in Morobe Province have been asked to be patient with the system.
Provincial program advisor for education, Keith Tangui, made the appeal after some retirees sought support from the media regarding their repatriation and transfer of personal properties back to their home provinces.
“The division of education is working with the provincial administration and the provincial government to address the issue,” said Tangui.
“We are asking all our teachers to calm down, to wait, as professional teachers in the field. As soon as we get a good reply from the administration and provincial government, we’ll inform everybody.
“We have done our budget but because of the cash flow problem, our budget is not enough to cater to all our teachers’ repatriation costs.
“So that is where we are waiting for our government to consider all that so we can assist them in due course.”
According to statistics from Morobe’s division of education, 177 teachers have retired between 2015 and 2022, while 28 have retired this year – 205 retirees in total.
Tangui further pointed out that 13 teachers who have retired before 2015 are still residing on school campus while waiting for their entitlements.
The division cannot force them out for fear of legal action.
Six of these teachers are from Huonville Primary School, four are from Bugandi Secondary School while one each from the primary schools of Omili, St Paul’s Lutheran and Kambili.
Additionally, between April and May this year, four out of the five teachers that passed away were repatriated by their families as the education division does not have funds for the exercise.
The division has submitted for K200 million to repatriate all the teachers from 2015-2023.
(Morobe’s provincial program advisor for education, Keith Tangui, is appealing to teaching retirees to be patient with them)