The exodus of teachers this year for employment opportunities abroad continues to impact the teaching profession, Samoa's Education Ministry CEO has revealed.

The CEO of the Ministry of Education and Culture, A'eau Christopher Hazelman, in response to questions from the Samoa Observer on the challenges the ministry has faced in the 2023 academic year said there were positives which included an improvement in the students' academic results when compared to previous years.

He said this year was also free of school shutdowns unlike 2022 when educational institutions closed for seven weeks due to the community transmission of COVID-19. 

However, A'eau said one recurring problem that continues to impact the teaching profession is the frequency of the resignation of teachers, either for employment abroad or taking on responsibilities at home because another family member has gone abroad for seasonal work.

"We've had quite a few resignations from teachers this year," said the CEO. "There are a number of reasons why they resigned from the profession. 

"This became a problem because once a teacher resigns, it affects the individual schools because the principal and the school will have to find a way to get a replacement.

"The ministry will have to resort to asking the nearest schools to help out this particular school. It's always a problem when people suddenly tender in their resignation."

Asked whether the rise in skilled Samoans signing up for the Recognised Seasonal Employment (RSE) scheme is a contributing factor, A'eau replied in the affirmative. 

"But there are two sides of the coin for RSE, there's this problem of skilled people leaving their careers to take up these opportunities, and then there's also this impact of not having people at home to take care of the elders and the children and for this year alone, there were some resignations based on the second reason. 

"There was one resignation from a teacher who had to stay home and look after the children and the elders because the rest had left overseas for RSE which to me is a valid reason because as Samoans we have a responsibility to look after our elders and take care of our families.

"It's who we are and some have opted to go back and look after their families because other relatives have travelled overseas leaving their lands uncultivated and there's no one to look after their assets."

In spite of these challenges, there is light at the end of the tunnel from an academic student's results perspective, with the CEO saying there has been an improvement when compared with previous years. 

"Personally for me, I believe will not and cannot happen overnight. There are a lot of issues that we need to work on to improve and as I said before it might not happen within the three years of my contract," said A'eau.

"However, I believe that even if there's half a mark improvement from the previous year, that is enough for me. We have to look at it in a broad way and work hard so that there's improvement every year."