RIGHT DIRECTION: Ghani believes with right approach, all schools will have enough graduate teachers.
SIBU: Sarawak Teachers Union (STU) singled out limited training facilities as impeding the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) efforts to produce enough graduate teachers yearly.
Its president William Ghani Bina added that the surging number of children yearly and having more schools as the other causative factor.
Compounding the woe, some teachers had reached their retirement age, he lamented.
“The target, supposedly by 2010, secondary school teachers needed to be 100 per cent graduates while at least 50 per cent are graduates in primary schools.
Ghani, however, said all was not lost as starting last year, teachers training institutions and universities were producing only graduates for education.
“With that approach, we are moving in the right direction to produce enough graduate teachers. Currently, secondary schools have about 80 per cent graduate teachers while more than 50 per cent for primary schools.
“In time to come, both secondary and primary schools would have 100 per cent graduate teachers,” he told The Borneo Post.
Last Saturday, director of Day School Management Division (Ministry of Education), Datuk Mazlan Mohamad said in time to come, all teachers would need to have at least a first degree.
Mazlan added this was in tandem with the country’s vision of heading towards a high income economy and achieving a developed nation status.
“We have a standard teacher enrolment qualification. In fact, by 2010, supposedly secondary school teachers need to be 100 per cent graduates while at least 50 per cent are graduates in primary schools,” Mazlan said then.
Responding, Ghani said although there were still non-graduates teachers in secondary schools, they had specialised knowledge and were highly experienced.
Asked what he meant, he said these teachers specialised in teaching certain subjects such as Mathematics, Science, BM among others.
“They had received specialised training and are very experienced in teaching. Hence, their expert knowledge and experience would certainly come in handy,” Ghani said.
The way he saw it, this would facilitate the creation of new knowledge to better benefit students.
“You see, the younger graduate teachers would get tips from the more experienced ones. On the other hand, the experienced teachers would be able to learn something new from their younger counterparts.
“Together they form a good team to better impart knowledge to students,” Ghani enthused.