LOCAL BRIEFS

SGMA, House
ally for
garment checks

The Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association is scheduled on Feb. 11 to begin international inspection of audits of member companies with the assistance of members of the CNMI House of Representatives.

Speaker of the House Diego T. Benavente accepted an invitation by SGMA Executive Director Richard A. Pierce to join the industry’s compliance audit team comprised of the SGMA executive director, a health ans safety consultant, human rights interviewers and translators. Leadership members will be asked by Benavente to join the audits.

Pierce sees these audits as a prelude to Committee on Resources Chairman Don Young’s visit later this month.

“SGMA wants to acquaint Chairman Young and his delegation with the real story within our industry. Not only do we hope to show the delegation on one of Saipan’s best factories, we intend to show him one of our factories that needs compliance work. This would be our work in progress the SGMA Code of Conduct was built to address and correct,” Pierce said.

One factory per day will be audited before the Chinese New Year’s celebration begins next week, and will continue when everyone is back to work.

PSS to host
education
confab in May

A conference on the state of public education in the CNMI will be hosted by the Public School System in May.

It will gather members of the community, related government agencies and other stake holders of education in one venue.

“We would like to bring it to Rota and Tinian as well. They can right there tell us what their desire for education,” according to acting Associate Commissioner for Instruction Rita Sablan.

She said the objective is to discuss the condition of public education in the CNMI and identify the community’s expectations for PSS.

The PSS would like to be attuned with specific expectations both the parents and business sector have for students graduating from high school.

These discussions would bring in possible directions PSS will need to take in the years to come, she said.

In addition to this local conference, the CNMI will also host the Pacific Education Conference in the middle of this year. Both the PSS and the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning are preparing for this regional conference to be held on Saipan and are expecting hundreds of participants.

Commissioner of Education Rita Inos earlier said that this regional conference will not only help the local education system but will bring in visitors to the CNMI. (Sheila D. Amor)