A Papua New Guinea NGO that is addressing the country's teacher shortage has started work this week in Manus province.
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Kokoda Track Foundation's Teach for Tomorrow programme began after it found 7500 partially trained elementary teachers in PNG were unable to complete their qualifications.
The foundation's chief executive Genevieve Nelson said one of the barriers to finishing their studies was state funding not being transferred to the provinces.
Ms Nelson said the decades' old problem had created the backlog of partially trained teachers.
"These teachers have actually been working in and volunteering to run local schools often in very very remote areas, but until they had the opportunity to complete their studies, they weren't able to be transferred onto the government payroll and paid what they should be paid in order to do their extraordinary work."