Dear Editor
I refer to the news article entitled, ‘STU intervenes for IPTS’ appearing in your esteemed paper on February 18.
I must thank STU for showing concern for education graduates of private institutions of higher learning (IPTS) like me.
There are many of us and we certainly do not take too kindly to a later statement by Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Mohd Puad Zakarsi that more teachers from Semenanjung Malaysia will be sent to Sabah and Sarawak to solve the problem of shortage of trained teachers faced by the two states.
According to the Bernama report, the deputy minister had said that the ministry would be taking this measure because it could not find enough trained teachers in these two states despite efforts like conducting open interviews.
The deputy minister was reported to have said teachers from Semenanjung Malaysia would have to be brought into Sabah and Sarawak because there were not enough locals to fill the quota meant for their intake as teachers.
This to me is preposterous because if the ministry is truly serious about filling the quota, there are now hundreds of us jobless education graduates, all Sarawakians and Sabahans, who are waiting to be employed. We have never been called for such open interviews and I see no reason why we do not make good teachers seeing that some of us went through our degree programs with flying colours.
In fact, many of us had even received email replies from the ministry telling us that our applications to be temporary teachers (Guru Sandaran Terlatih – GST) had been rejected without us being called for interviews. So what open interview is the deputy minister talking about?
Today, I and many of my fellow IPTS education graduates are facing uncertainty as to our future teaching career. We donít know until when the government will decide to accept us, or if indeed it is making any effort to decide our fate in the education system of the country.
If the current situation is allowed to go on without any answer from the Ministry of Education, imagine how many more education graduates will come out of IPTS from throughout the country will be unemployed by the end of the university year.
I see the situation as hopeless for me and many of these graduates unless the government is brave enough to make a firm decision.
Or if it is impossible for the government to accept us, then order all those IPTS offering Degree in Education to cease conducting the course. In that way children and their parents will not be led into false hope.
Jobless 1st Class Honour Grad