Minister for Education, Aseri Radrodro says in terms on increasing the retirement age of teachers to 60, it is the role of the government to create employment opportunities for school leavers and to provide promotion opportunities for senior teachers who can move on to executive roles in the civil service, the foreign diplomatic corp or even to the private sector.
He has highlighted this in response to FijiFirst MP and former Education Minister Premila Kumar who says extending the retirement age simply means young people will have to wait longer to get a job.
While responding to questions by fijivillage News, Radrodro says they certainly cannot have a war of words with the former Minister as the Ministry is busy preparing for the new school year and they intend to concentrate on that.
However, he says limiting retirement to 55 to be able to cater for school leavers must never be a concern that limits retirement age and a creative government allows for longevity in retirement whereby people who can still be employed continue to do so comfortably.
He says as for open contracts for workers, these are policies of the coalition government designed to support career civil servants who as a result are able to build themselves careers in government and go up the ladder the harder they work.
Radrodro says such policies have always encouraged a sense of ownership for workers who know they account to those around them each day and are not complacent because they are here today and gone in 6 months.
While responding to questions during a press conference with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad, Radrodro says the cabinet will have to make a cabinet decision on the phasing out of contracts for teachers.
He adds that is part of their manifesto and that is something they have to look into in terms of contracting of staff or working as a career civil servant.
Meanwhile, Kumar says she can only sympathise with the youths and the graduates who will be coming out because she knows that in the teaching field, with early retirement, resignations and death, there used to be roughly 300 to 400 vacancies in a year.
While responding to a question during a press conference at the FijiFirst Headquarters on extending teacher contracts, Kumar says this is the policy of the current government so she cannot comment on that.
However, she says people in the private sector as well do not have a lifelong job.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka adds they had highlighted the effect which was that many members of the education staff on contract could not secure loans because they could not prove to their lending institutions that they had a secure source of income for the time of the loan.
He says he does not know where Kumar is coming from as he has heard from both the Fijian Teachers Association and the Fiji Teachers Union.
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