SIBU: Temenggong Vincent Lau said he would support all actions taken by Chinese educationalists in promoting Chinese education.
Speaking at the Chinese Education Unity Night co-hosted by Sibu Mandarin Teachers’ Association and the Federation of Sarawak Chinese Teachers’ Association on Saturday, he said this included them (educationalists) carrying out reasonable and peaceful protests.
He said this was what the national Chinese education body was doing in the peninsula after failures to meet their requests in solving the acute teacher-shortage problem.
Lau said he understood their frustrations because the government had been sending teachers who did not understand Mandarin to these schools.
“This has made matters worse as the schools have the extra burden to assign teaching duties to these teachers, apart from having their acute teacher shortage unsolved.”
Lau believed the many problems plaguing these schools were due to administrative failures, and not due to the government’s policies.
He called on the people to stay together to fight the cause, saying they should support the efforts of the educationalists.
“Although the school management boards and other bodies linked to the schools in Sarawak do not participate in the protest, I shall support all actions that justify the fight in our education’s development.”
Lau admitted that there were numerous problems faced by both Chinese primary and secondary schools in the country.
He noted that there were over 60 Chinese secondary schools in the country housing more than 60,000 students.
“The problem is that more students want to enrol, but, they are being turned away due to the lack of classrooms.
“This year, over 6,000 students were being denied of pursuing Chinese education because of this.”
He said it might be a good sign that more students wanted to take up Chinese education at secondary level, “but, the problem is this is not within the education mainstream of the country; only Chinese primary education is.”
He said as more teachers were retiring, this remained a heavy blow to the acute shortage of Chinese primary school teachers’ problem.
During the gathering on Saturday night, the acute Chinese teacher shortage issue was a hot topic of discussion. Several educationalists expressed concern over the situation which they described as “critical”.
President of the Federation of Malaysia Chinese Teachers Association, Ong Chiow Chuen, said although Chinese primary school was within the national education mainstream, it had not received enough help and support from the government.
“To our frustrations, the government is sending more teachers who do not understand Mandarin to our schools.”
He said this had put the schools in stress when it comes to assigning teaching duties to these teachers.
“Burdened by the acute shortage, the principals now have to find ways to accommodate these non-Chinese speaking teachers; the schools can only put them to take charge of PE, music and art classes.”
He said the Education Ministry had blamed it on less Chinese applying for teaching posts, “but, this is not true. I have seen too many instances of applicants with good academic results being rejected”.
He said in Sarawak, there were now 28 teachers who did not understand Mandarin being made the headmasters of Chinese primary schools.
Chairman of Sarawak Chinese Primary School Teachers Association, Tie Hung Teck, who also spoke, said last year’s statistics showed there were 67 headmasters, 400 teachers and more than 200 clerks who did not understand Mandarin being sent to Chinese primary schools in the country.
Tie was concerned with the situation in Sarawak because one fifth of Chinese primary schools in the country were in Sarawak.
With more native students enrolling, he said the acute teacher shortage had become even more hard-pressed.
Ong said adding salt to the wounds was the fact that Chinese primary schools also did not receive enough grants for rebuilding and repair.
Chinese primary school teachers who were committee members of their state body were in Sibu last weekend for their annual general meeting (AGM). The Saturday night unity dinner formed a part of the state-wide programme.
Also present were members of the school boards of management, headmasters, and mistresses
Twenty-two retiring teachers in Sibu received souvenirs from their association during the dinner.