By GEORGINA MICHAEL
The Teaching Service Commission (TSC) launched the Teacher File and Qualification Digitization Project in Port Moresby today.
The project is a major partnership with the government of Australia under the Partnerships for Improving Education (PIE) that was rolled out three years back.
The program implemented in 2023, collecting and recording up to 26,000 teachers’ data out of the 80,000 teachers in PNG.
TSC Chairman Maini Mike Ugaia said the launching was to inform teachers and stakeholders.
“TSC is the sole employer of all the teachers in this nation, hence, under Section 9 of the Teaching Service Act, we are mandated to safeguard teacher records. By digitalizing these files, we are creating a baseline or well informed decisions regarding teacher terms, conditions and fair remuneration,” he said.
Mr Ugaia emphasized that within the past three years, TSC had been able to collect and record the data of 26,000 teachers.
“We are aiming to move the figure up to 50 to 60,000 in the next three months with the introduction of a much bigger scanning machine,” he said.
“This landmark initiative marks a strategic reset of the nation’s teaching workforce, moving from 53 years of manual recording to a modern secure digital system. This is in alignment with the National Government’s Medium Term Development Plan IV (MTD IV) where TSC is auditing and digitalizing the records of all 80,000 teachers across PNG.”
The chairman concluded by acknowledging the support from the Australian Government and PNG Remington Group for providing services to TSC.