441 teachers have resigned from January to June this year where 80 percent of the teachers migrated for greener pastures and 20 percent for job opportunities in Fiji and the Pacific.
This has been confirmed by the Minister for Education Aseri Radrodro while responding to a question by FijiFirst MP Hem Chand on the number of teachers who have resigned in the first half of this year and the plans the Ministry has to address the high turnover of its teaching staff.
Radrodro says to address the exodus of teachers, the Ministry in ensuring that the teaching and learning environment is not compromised, 96 new Early Childhood Education teachers, 6 special school teachers, 303 primary school teachers and 164 secondary school teachers have been recruited.
He says they have employed 569 new graduates as of August this year.
The Minister says they have also re-engaged retirees through an expression of interest process where 24 secondary school teachers who retired last year were re-engaged in specific areas such as maths, physics, computer, office technology, PEMAC and industrial arts.
He says retirees were re-engaged as even the new graduates do not meet the demand in specialised areas.
Radrodro says 46 of the 80 primary school teachers who retired last year were re-engaged.
He says they are also re-engaging teachers who suffered the consequences of the 'no jab, no job' policy where 190 teachers who were terminated, out of which 119 have been re-engaged.
While responding to questions by FijiFirst MP Jone Usamate if this is an increase or decrease over the past few years and what is being done to mitigate it as the teacher to student ratio is high and some new teachers cannot speak in the proper English language, Radrodro says it has decreased as of June.
