Papua New Guinea Teachers Association (PNGTA)

He has directed his concern at the Teaching Service Commission (TSC), the Department of Personal Management and the Department of Treasury.

PNGTA, in a press conference today, said the MoU ceremony did not eventuate as scheduled. What was supposed to commence at the end of last month, is causing confusion and a delay in payment for teachers in PNG.

Staff and members can now access personal information online as PNGTA aims to fulfill their corporate plan which is to restore reform and modernize PNGTA.

It took three months for local software developers, Destinysoft Microsystem, to collect all data from PNGTA Members restored in the software according to the Software Developer, Emmanuel Macclay.

The application was launched recently and the team are aiming to have training starting next week for members.

PNGTA president, Aita Sanangkepe informed teachers that the Teaching Service Commission and the PNGTA are yet to sort out the agreement.

According to PNGTA, at numerous occasions the TSC had advised PNGTA that it had made a submission to the Department of Personnel Management (DPM) that teachers would be paid before school resumed in 2023.

However, Sanangkepe said this has not happened. Early this year during the NEB swearing-in ceremony TSC gave the electronic copy of the Salary Fixation Agreement template.

The meeting was held on Thursday April, 27^th, 2023 at the Vulupindi Haus in Port Moresby. Executives from PNGTA brought a working document to present to TSC for comments then later present it to the department of Personal Management (DPM) for action.

PNGTA National vice president, Shenell Kou said some of the issues captured in the document include, teachers housing allowances, teachers’ salary fixation and teachers training.

“This has created a gap in the resumption of term 3. Those teachers who are involved in the counting are missing from the classrooms. Because of the enrollment in many schools it is higher than previous years the administration of schools, example in Waigani Primary School, we had about 3 teachers in counting within NCD and another three probably in their provinces. We found it very difficult to take up the normal lessons in the classrooms because of the numbers,” he added.