Shortage Of Teachers - Mediocrity And Politics
That teaser was not attributed in any one in particular so we have to assume that it comes from an editor of the Sarawak Tribune. Whether you would like to further assume that is was prompted by a politician from the ruling GPS government (who wish to remain anonymous) is entirely up to you.
Whoever those thoughts came from it highlighted what is common knowledge among many Malaysians, particularly Sarawakian parents and students who have long complained, not just about quality of teachers who arrived from Malaya but also about the distorted history of Sarawak and disproportionate amount of the history of Islam in the text books for Sejarah.
The Sarawak Teachers Union (STU), in a statement dated 20st June 2021, said that there are some 3000 vacancies in Sarawak.
The statement also said that Sarawak is in dire need of new teachers especially for subjects such as English, History, Islamic Studies and Special Education Programme. This is however is not the point which this article wants to discuss. The objective of this article is to stir a debate on the role of the Sarawak’s Ministry Of Education, Science & Technological Research in determining the direction of the education sector in Sarawak so that it will fully meet the aspirations of Sarawak’s students.
Three years ago the Sarawak Education Department (or the Sarawak Chapter of the Jabatan Pendidikan) said that it was working to reach a posting ratio of nine local teachers to one from outside the state under initiative 90:10 by 2018.
That time the ratio for secondary schools, the ratio of local teachers to those from Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Labuan was 73:25:2 (10,628 locals, 3,687 West Malaysians and 229 from Sabah and Labuan). The number of non-Sarawakian teachers in the primary schools were about the same. Three years down the road, Sarawak was no where near the targeted ratio of 90:10. In fact the situation worsen to a point where this one-off mega recruitment became the only viable solution to this problem of shortage of teachers in Sarawak.
https://www.theborneopost.com/2015/10/08/90-pct-local-teachers-by-year-2018/
The 90:10 ratio in fact went all the way back to 2010. And in 2015 news about unemployed teaching graduates from UNITAR surfaced.
https://www.theborneopost.com/2015/10/09/accept-unitar-graduates-for-training-to-achieve-91-ratio/
https://bosspengajar.blogspot.com/2015/02/dud-degrees-leave-graduates-in-fix.html
Among the reason proffered by the MOE then was Sarawakian candidates for the Institut Pendidikan Guru (IPG) were not qualified, either academically or because they failed some psychological tests. Yet it was painfully obvious that many teachers sent from Malaya were of inferior quality and lacking in motivation especially when it comes to teaching in rural schools.
Except for a very brief period of 22 months i.e from May 2018 to March 2020, the government of Sarawak was always part of the federal government. Before May 2018, it was the Sarawak’s chapter of Barisan Nasional (BN) that was the government in Sarawak. After Feb 2020, it was the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), a rebranded BN, that is the government. GPS, as we all know is a coalition partner in the ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) government. In fact, GPS is not only a partner but a very strategic one too because without them the PN government would not be in existent today. They were the kingmakers and they were shy about claiming the title.
The question that we must ask now is this: Why did the Sarawak government, despite recognising the gravity of the problem so long ago, did nothing to arrest the problem and let it fester until it reached the emergency that we are seeing now? Was their strategic position in BN and in PN a farce?
The local Sarawak ministry in charge of educational matters in Sarawak, past and present failed miserably. The incumbency of BN and now GPS’s lawmakers takes precedent over the vital interest of the general Sarawakians and so they become subservient to the of leaders of Malaya. In other words they become ulun Malaya. This paved the way for the Malayan minister-in-charge to send many substandard teachers from Malaya to Sarawak, many of whom cannot even string a decent sentence in English.
As part of the background to this article, it is pertinent to know that in the history of Malaysia’s ministry of education there had been 23 ministers of education so far, starting with Abdul Razak Hussein. Out the 23 ministers of education that we have had until today, only 2 are from Sarawak - Abdul Rahman Ya’kub ( from 1969 - 1970) and Sulaiman Daud (July 1981 - July 1984). The other 21 are all Malayan.
Of the 23 ministers of education that have served Malaysia, 6 went on to become prime minister (PM) of Malaysia. Every single one of them, including the 6 that went on to become PM, were fully acquainted with the problems but none demonstrated any particular motivation to solve the problem. Sarawak was not in their backyard.
Do you still want to entrust your children’s future to this incompetent and uncaring government? Renung renung lah.
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From the time the problem of shortage of teachers in Sarawak became public sometimes in 2010, there had been 5 ministers of education, among them the current prime minister of Malaysia, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
https://www.malaysiatercinta.com/2016/11/senarai-alamat-peta-lokasi-gps-mrsm.html
( 3 MRSM in operation in Sarawak). 2 under construction - Lawas and Bintulu
https://www.malaysiatercinta.com/2018/12/senarai-sekolah-berasrama-penuh-sbp.html
( 3 SMK Sains in Sarawak)
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