KUCHING: The Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) has urged the Education Ministry to look into the issues of teachers retiring early as well as teacher shortage in the country, especially Sarawak.
STU president Adam Parkash Abdullah said the union was indeed very concerned with these issues, affecting the teachers nationwide.
He believed that most of the teachers shared the same sentiments and reasons for opting out such as unnecessary clerical work, parent’s expectations, non-favourable working conditions and lack of facilities to meet the demand of the job.
He said teachers have their core business in schools, for example – teaching but a lot of their time these days have been used in collecting, processing and posting data.
“We need the time in between lessons to breathe and prepare lessons for the next day.
“There are also little Napoleon in the state and district education offices that sometimes complicate the implementation of policies at schools,” he told New Sarawak Tribune.
“STU would like to urge the Education Ministry to address these issues promptly and not pretend that these are just processes and procedures for best practices,” he said, adding that teachers have been the target of criticism lately especially so during the pandemic of COVID-19.
Apart from that, Adam said, the ministry should also solve the pressing issues of teacher shortage in the country especially in Sarawak.
He said there were some schools in Sarawak where teachers have to teach from 32 to 36 periods/sessions per week.
“Although there has been a recruitment exercise, the placement of teachers is very slow and the issue has not been resolved till now. Besides, teacher replacement does not equate to the number sent away for transfer.”
“We want prompt action, not excuses anymore. We want to be excellent teachers for our students and not anything else.”
“Give us back the life of a teacher so we can help our students grow. Don’t make us do police work, the doctors job in the school.
“We do not want to be ridiculed by anybody on the street for doing things that we are not trained to do,” he stressed.
STU, he said, was supporting the call by teachers to the Education Ministry to look into teachers’ current job demand and act accordingly.
He added that the union would be willing to discuss the issues further to help ease the burden on teachers so they can work happily and hopefully end their service with high regards for the job.
It was recently reported that increasing administrative work has little to do with teaching and demanding parents were among reasons that many teachers are opting for early retirement.
A headmistress told New Straits Times that she wanted to retire early that parents are too demanding these days. She claimed that the western trait of freedom of speech was rising and students felt they cannot be rebuked or reprimanded.
Meanwhile, the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) in a statement on April 18 estimated that more than 10,000 have been submitting their papers annually for early retirement over the last few years.
This figure far exceeds the Education Ministry’s statistics released on Nov 9, 2021, that a total of 4,360 optional retirement applications have been submitted since January last year. The pattern of early retirement or even quitting and leaving the teaching service is very worrying.
