No Renewed FTRA Registration, No Teaching Job, says Ministry
“It is the responsibility of teachers to keep their registrations current to teach in a school as required by law.
Tuesday 16 November 2021 | 11:31
Teachers with expired registration certificates will not be allowed to teach, says Permanent Secretary for Education, Heritage and Arts Anjeela Jokhan.
Responding to revelation by the Fiji Teachers Registration Authority (FTRA) that 538 teachers were teaching with expired registrations, Ms Jokhan said they were notified about the same and the ministry was extremely concerned about it.
“As an employer, we are concerned that so many teachers have not bothered to renew their registrations with FTRA despite notices sent to them,” Ms Jokhan said.
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“It is the responsibility of teachers to keep their registrations current to teach in a school as required by law.
“We need to respect the law and abide by it. By not renewing their Certificate of Registrations, these teachers have breached the Fiji Teachers Registration Act 2008.”
She assured students and parents that the ministry was currently in the process of recruiting new teachers for Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary schools.
Recruitment would continue until all terminated teachers were replaced.
“In fact, this recruitment is providing the ministry an opportunity to replace some unqualified teachers with qualified teachers,” she said.
“And of course, by doing so, we are further strengthening teaching with qualified teachers.
“We know that this will improve teaching in schools which is a very welcomed move for the ministry.”
When asked how the teachers continued to be employed even without valid registration certificates, Ms Jokhan said: “When these teachers were employed, they had valid registration certificates which have now expired. The teachers did not renew it.
“Professional registration is the responsibility of the employee and their respective registration bodies.”
She said monitoring of teacher's registrations were done by the authority.
“It’s not the ministry. The teachers best answer this question. As an employer we expect to get advance notice from FTRA when teachers’ registrations end.
“Note it is the responsibility of an employee if he or she wants to teach to carry a valid registration certificate. Once we are notified then we can ensure that after the registrations expire teachers are no longer allowed to teach.”
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