Teaching Vacancies In Sarawak - To Benefit Who?
On the matter of the plan by the Ministry of Education (MOE) for a one-off big scale recruitment to employ 18,702 non-teaching graduates to fill in teaching vacancies nationwide.
Sarawak is among the states badly affected by the shortage of teachers.
Three notable reactions (among the many that had surfaced) are worth taking note of as they represent two extremes of thoughts on the matter.
The first reaction, and it has been reported by several mainstream newspaper, represent the agenda of an NGO guided by the Ketuanan Melayu Malaya philosophy. They very cleverly disguised their agenda as ‘care’ for quality teachers and quality teaching. They said they are against the MOE employing non-teaching graduates.
The two other reactions are from thinking and intelligent Sarawakians whose thoughts on the matter are correctly placed. These two said unemployed teaching graduates must be prioritised.
There is no information in public sphere about how many teaching graduates are still unemployed in Sarawak but the MOE had disclose that there are 3000 teaching vacancies in Sarawak. The number of unemployed teaching graduates cannot be more than 1000 so we are easily looking at 2000 vacancies that can be taken up by non-teaching graduates from Sarawak. Is this in fact the real reason why this Malaya based NGO is objecting to the MOE’s plan? Are they, in reality, looking at this 2000 vacancies as an opportunity for them to exploit and to further their ketuanan melayu Malaya agenda in Sarawak by getting their own non-teaching graduate members to fill in the vacancies?
The problem with the shortage of teachers in Sarawak is a manifestation of the policies of the federal government in the past. There is no two way about it and this Malaya based NGO is a big contributory factor to the problem.
Reporting on this issue on the 22nd June 2021, the New Sarawak Tribune had use these words to describe it: We have sacrificed meritocracy and quality teaching for mediocrity and politics.
The politics was imbued with ketuanan melayu Malaya and the end result was widespread mediocrity among the teaching force and in the quality of education in Malaysia.
https://www.utusan.com.my/nasional/2021/01/2500-profesor-kita-tiada-kualiti-dr-arshad/
The taking in of guru sambilan and guru interim has long been a practice adopted by the education ministry to fill in urgent teaching vacancies, particularly in rural schools. As far as a teaching background is concerned, these temporary teachers are not substantially different from the non-teaching graduates who is now at the heart of this issue. In fact if the brains in the MOE were to critically look at this issue they should notice that this problem present a very unique opportunity for them to put in place a measurable key performance indicator system that will objectively measure the performances of teachers. And I have this weird gut feeling that if this were to be done, the members of this NGO will take to the streets to protest against it as the system will put in danger the continuing employment of many of their members.
So to the officials of this NGO and its members, I show you my middle finger.
That being said, the Sarawak government is guilty, in part, of allowing the problem to fester for so long. Not withstanding that education is on the Federal List in the federal constitution, the Sarawak government, past and present, should have exerted their rights and made sure sure that education matters in Sarawak must fully meet the aspirations of Sarawakians and of the state.
Sarawakians, as we approach the 12th state elections, let us reflect on this.
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