Mrs Kai, who teaches in Morobe, finally gets the attention of Education Secretary Uke Kombra after a chance meet on Wednesday Carolyn Kai was outside the Education Department headquarters at Waigani desperately looking for answers when Education Secretary Dr Uke Kombra found her. That was on Wednesday, about one year after her arrival in Port Moresby from Morobe Province and her daily visits to FinCorp House to seek answers to why she had not been paid since starting work as an elementary school teacher
Dr Kombra has now instructed Mrs Kai’s documents to be handed to him for further investigation. She said yesterday that she now feels some relief that the highest authority in the department is aware of her plight and her salaries would be addressed “soon”. More good news is on the way for Mrs Kai as the teachers’ union said yesterday that they would also assist her. Mrs Kai is a teacher in Menyamya district who trekked the bushes of Morobe and Gulf provinces to reach Kerema and onto Port Moresby to find answers to her unpaid salaries. She has been in Port Moresby for 11 months and her five children have missed her so much, but she refuses to return home until what is due to her is given. Mrs Kai said the department has advised that her papers are at the salaries section of her employer Teaching Services Commission, but officers there have been busy with addressing the teachers’ suspension, auto suspension issues. So her case has been put on hold. She teaches in remote Katanga Elementary School in Menyamya. The school is in ward one of Wapi local level government, located where Morobe, Gulf, Western and Eastern Highlands provincial boundaries meet. Mrs Kai has been an elementary school teacher for six years after completing her training in Lae in 2013. She taught for one year in the Bulolo district before being transferred to Katanga Elementary. However, Mrs Kai has been teaching without pay because she had not been given a teaching file number. When she sought help in Lae, she was referred to Port Moresby. Mrs Kai is one of many teachers who sit outside the FinCorp House every day, hoping – most times hungry and frustrated – for positive answers to their queries. For the young teacher, her chance meeting with Dr Kombra on Wednesday may be for the better. Post Courier
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