National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad says it is not them but the Permanent Secretary for Education, Dr. Anjeela Jokhan and Minister for Education, Premila Kumar who came out and said there are unqualified teachers in the system and he has questioned what the Ministry has done in the past years to improve teacher quality.
While responding to Dr. Jokhan’s comments that the NFP Leader and the Fiji Teachers Union, General Secretary are pushing for unqualified and unregistered teachers to teach the students, Professor Prasad says they have never said that they want unqualified teachers in the teaching system.
The NFP Leader says all they are saying is that the Ministry of Education has itself publicly berated teachers about their qualifications and when the damage has been done, Dr. Jokhan came out yesterday attacking the politicians, unions and media.
Professor Prasad says Dr. Jokhan is now trying to do some damage control.
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The NFP Leader has also questioned what the Ministry of Education has done in the last four years after finding out that approximately half of the applicants failed the English proficiency component of the teacher test.
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We have sent questions to Dr. Jokhan in relation to Professor Prasad’s comments this morning.
She is yet to respond.
We are also awaiting a response on specific follow up questions for clarification that were sent to her last week however she has not answered the questions in full to date.
Dr. Jokhan had stated yesterday that 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.
She also questioned why Fiji Teachers Union General Secretary, Agni Deo Singh and NFP Leader, Professor Biman Prasad are pushing for unqualified and unregistered teachers to teach the students.
You can check out the earlier stories on our website, fijivillage.