PNG Teachers to get pay increase next fortnight

Teachers can expect the long awaited 10% wage increase as of their respective second pay this year according to the Teaching Service Commission. Chairman Baran Sori said that their first pay (of the year) last week only included their base salary of 7.5% which is the public service salary increment. “The second increment is the teacher’s salary increment of 2.5% which will be included in their second pay,” said Sori. He added that the salary increase would be closely monitored by the commission and delivered by the Finance Department. Mr Sori told this paper yesterday that he was happy that the teacher’s salary increase will finally be realized as he stated how important teachers were to the growth and expansion of the country both physically and in brain power. He said that the allowance increase greatly enhanced the remote allowance that teachers in remote areas of the country receive. “The remote allowance has almost doubled from k2000 to K4000,” said Sori. He furthered that the remote allowance scheme got a major boosting due to the sacrifice that teachers make to live and apply their trade in disadvantaged areas of the country that are at most times inaccessible and unforgiving in the harshness of the living conditions.