Expat Teachers for Enga schools

Warakamb (Winja) Primary school

By PHILIP KEPSON (From the National)
THE Enga provincial government’s quality education policy has been boosted this week with the recruitment of eight expatriate teachers.
The veteran educators are to teach in various schools in the province.
Five will teach at the Highland Lutheran International School at Amapyaka.
The others will teach in secondary schools in Pausa, Wabag and Kopen.
They are here largely thanks to the efforts of Enga Governor Peter Ipatas, who is spearheading the quality education policy.
Most of the expatriate teachers are from Australia.
Experienced teacher Robert John Thompson, who is from Perth, Western Australia, will take his new post as the principal of Kopen Secondary School.
His wife, Norma Alison Thompson, will be the school’s deputy principal.
Another experienced teacher, Greg Rolles, from Sydney, New South Wales, has been recruited to head the English department in Pausa Secondary School or Wabag Secondary.
Paul van Wezel, from the Netherlands, has been appointed as the principal of the Highland Lutheran International School.
The others recruited to be at the same school are Australians Merryn Perrett and Robert McCheyne, Englishman Niel Brown, Joseph Intal, from the Philippines, and Dr Todd Luedtke from the United States.
Mr Ipatas said his government would recruit more expatriates, as well as local teachers, next year as part of his drive to improve quality in education in the province.
The governor said more than 50 teachers from other provinces had also been recruited recently to teach in high and primary schools in the province.
The Enga provincial government has spent about K80 million on free education and quality education in the past 10 years.
An additional K5 million has been allocated to implement the quality education push in this year’s budget.“Enga has been last in everything and we are trying our best to try to pull ourselves up a bit with everyone else in the country,” Mr Ipatas said.

Our comment.
Our local teachers are as good. But what Mr. Ipatas is doing is very important. We still need effeiciency and administrative skills. Most elites for WAECA were thought by people not from our area. We got quality education.