JOHOR BARU: Increasing administrative work has little to do with teaching and demanding parents are among reasons that many teachers are opting for early retirement.
According to New Straits Times, a 58-year-old primary school teacher in Johor Baru is retiring in May next year, a year before she is due for mandatory retirement – due to the increased workload.
“There’s a lot of updating of students’ details to do under the Student Database Application (SDA), including attendance, parents’ details and student vaccination details,” she said.
“This kind of work is tedious because it has little or nothing to do with teaching which is the core of the teacher’s craft,” she opined.
She also said older teachers were not computer-savvy and so they struggle to cope with online teaching. The frequency with which new policies are introduced and the changes to these policies that are introduced in midstream compounds this problem.
Meanwhile, another interviewee who, is the headmistress of a primary school in Kluang said she has to travel 100km one way daily from her home in Johor Baru to teach in a central Johor town.
“My teaching is minimal because most of my work is administrative,” she told New Straits Times.
“I’m exhausted of getting different instructions every time. State Education Department says one thing while the District Education Department says another, thus creating confusion,” she sighed.
Another reason the headmistress wants to retire early is that parents are too demanding these days.
She said parents expect teachers to either focus on their child specifically or give them more attention, which is tiresome.
She observed that a majority of these parents are young and are insistent their children get focused attention.
“The western trait of freedom of speech is rising. Students feel they cannot be rebuked or reprimanded.
“We are not supposed to scold them. Our hands and mouths are all tied. We just can’t take it anymore,” she lamented.
Another school principal in Johor Baru, who opted out in October 2022 at 56, also agreed that expectations from the parents are very high.
“The pressure is too much on the principal these days. Handling the teachers is no simple task nowadays,” said Sharifah.
“In addition, parents now want special care for their child. But on my plate is the entire school which I have to look after. They complain too much.
“As a principal, I have to be fair to all. I have my staff to look after, my teachers and the students. It’s like a ton of bricks on me,” she groused.
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.
