Challenges of teachers

TONOTA: Most classes in junior secondary schools have more than 40 pupils and, in some schools, 50. Indeed, student numbers should be reduced to no more than 30 per class. In fact, in some private secondary schools, classes may have no more than 20 pupils. However, this will mean that government will have to dig deeper into its overstretched financial resources to build extra classrooms. But reduced class sizes mean that unemployed graduates can now be employed.

In the late 1990s all the graduates of Tonota College of Education (TCE) were employed in government schools. In fact, before they wrote their final examinations at the end of Year 3, they already had received letters telling them that they would be posted to a particular school in the following January – some three months later. But today, things are very different. Now, they have to apply for vacancies and compete with other applicants and being employed, as a teacher is by no means certain. In many cases, the best that graduates can hope for is a temporary post where a teacher may be on maternity or study leave. Or a post in a primary school even if they are qualified to teach in secondary schools.