Permanent Secretary for Education, Dr. Anjeela Jokhan says the fact is that certain teachers have not attained or kept up to date with necessary qualifications to teach the students and the Ministry has told them to get this in order.
In a press conference, Dr. Jokhan says a degree does not automatically qualify someone to teach unless it is a teaching degree. She says there are special qualifications required that ensures the teachers are trained to deal with different scenarios with children.
Dr. Jokhan says parents want qualified teachers.
She says one should question would a lawyer be allowed to practice law without a registration qualification or would one like a surgeon whose registration has expired to perform a surgery.
She has questioned why Fiji Teachers Union General Secretary, Agni Deo Singh and the National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad are pushing for unqualified and unregistered teachers to teach the students.
Dr. Jokhan says there is a bulk of teachers that have kept up with their qualifications and registrations and have continued to educate themselves.
She also claimed in the press conference that fijivillage, Fiji Times and Fiji Sun have not done any research on the matter while publishing stories.
Dr. Jokhan says in 2017, a teacher proficiency test was conducted for pre service graduates, those wishing to enter the teaching profession and practicing teachers who did not have education topics as part of their qualifications.
She says approximately half of the applicants failed the English proficiency component of the test raising concerns about digital literacy.
fijivillage and CFL’s 5 radio stations have covered several issues from the Education Minister’s visits to schools over the past few weeks. These were covered on fijivillage, Legend FM, FM96, Viti FM, Navtarang and Radio Sargam. We have also covered Doctor Jokhan’s comments from last Thursday on the issue regarding unqualified and unregistered teachers. Specific follow up questions for clarification were sent to her however she has not answered the questions in full to date.
We also tried to ask questions after Doctor Jokhan’s statement in the press conference however we were told that no questions were allowed and we have to email her. Legend FM News has sent her the follow up and further questions again.
You can check out the earlier stories on our website, fijivillage.
We have also sent questions to Fiji Teachers Union General Secretary, Agni Deo Singh and National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad after Doctor Jokhan raised the question on why they are pushing for unqualified and unregistered teachers to teach the students.
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The Ministry of Education is in the process of recruiting teachers for early childhood education, primary and secondary schools and is also using this opportunity to replace some unqualified teachers with qualified teachers.
This has been confirmed by the Permanent Secretary for Education, Anjeela Jokhan who says the recruitment will continue until they have all teachers in place and they know this will improve teaching in schools.
She has revealed this after revelations that about 538 teachers have not renewed their teacher registration license and risk termination.
When questioned why unqualified teachers are teaching in schools, Jokhan says the Teacher Remuneration Policy of 2018 describes a fully qualified teacher as one having a Bachelors in Education Degree at the appropriate level, including early childhood education, special and inclusive education, primary and secondary.
She says a person with the relevant Diploma in Education is appointed as assistant teacher and therefore they have a mixture of teachers in these categories.
Jokhan says the Ministry would like to appoint more teachers with degrees to better resource its schools.
Meanwhile, Jokhan says as an employer, they are concerned that so many teachers have not bothered to renew their registrations with Fiji Teachers Registration Authority despite notices sent to them.
She says it is the responsibility of the teachers to keep their registrations current to teach in a school as required by law.
Jokhan says by not renewing their certificate of registrations, these teachers have breached the Fiji Teachers Registration Act 2008.
Jokhan adds when these teachers were employed, they had valid registration certificates which have now expired.
The Permanent Secretary for Education further says professional registration is the responsibility of the employee and their respective registration bodies.
The Fiji Teachers Registration Authority says since 2009, various teachers have been granted registrations under limited authority to teach and provisional categories and renewals and registrations were granted to teachers who did not meet the minimum qualification requirements.
It says this was for teachers in certain discipline areas facing a shortage of teachers with an expectation that these teachers will upgrade their qualification within the specified time-frame.
The Authority says it is now 12 years and unfortunately some teachers have not upgraded their academic qualifications, therefore, there will be no further registrations granted under the limited authority to teach or provisional categories.
The Authority says the Ministry of Education can now replace these teachers with fully qualified teachers registered with Fiji Teachers Registration Authority who have not been employed.
Meanwhile, over 100 teachers have applied for the renewal of their teacher registration license in the last few days after revelation last week that 538 teachers have not renewed their licenses and risk termination.
The CEO of the Fiji Teachers Registration Authority, Sangeeta Singh says a final 30-day notice period has been served to these teachers on 8th November to renew their licenses and failure to do this will result in deregistration, which simply means that these teachers will not be able to teach in any schools.
Singh says for some teachers, the 30-day final notice period has expired and these teachers will be deregistered and the Ministry of Education will be informed and will be required to terminate the contracts of these teachers.
Permanent Secretary for Education, Anjeela Jokhan says the Ministry needs to ensure that all the teacher training organisations focus on teachers to be digitally literate as the reality on the ground shows a gap in knowledge between teachers and students.
While speaking at a meeting focused on the review of the primary education curriculum, Jokhan says they will ensure that online resources are provided and there will also be a focus on online and offline options for remote schools.
She says the curriculum, teachers guides and all training programs should also be on one platform for the Education Ministry.
Jokhan also shared a story about a student at USP who was doing his Masters and looked at how Year 1 students can learn using game-based learning for mathematics.
She says they tried it out in 9 schools and it was a great success.
However, Jokhan says it was clear the teachers were not comfortable using the tablets.
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