KOTA KINABALU: Teachers in Malaysia are not appreciated and underpaid, said Sabah Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Seri Panglima Masidi Manjun when officiating at the International Conference on Education 2014 (ICEdu14) at the Grand Ballroom 1Borneo Hypermall here, on Wednesday night.
Masidi described the conference which was organized by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ), Indonesia, as a good platform to empower educators and teachers in Malaysia, so that the community would see teaching as a respected and honourable profession.
“Sabahans often forget that we will not be able to achieve what we have achieved today if it was not for our teachers and educators. Therefore, I hope that this conference will boost the knowledge of both Sabah and Jakarta in appreciating and culturing education, as well as honoring teaching profession” said Masidi who represented Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Haji Aman at the event.
“The ICEdu14 is the brainchild of a regional partnership in the education field and postgraduate studies between UMS and UNJ.
“The organization of this conference is the result of a promotional education visit carried out by UMS to UNJ, Indonesia from March 2 to 6, this year.
“The visit resulted in a collaboration between the postgraduate offices of both universities to organize an international conference as a platform for intellectual development in research areas pertaining to education and social science.”
Masidi also said that collaboration between countries are important, be it in education sector, or tourism.
He gave an example by saying that in tourism, countries should work as a team, and that Borneo, which includes Sabah, Sarawak, Kalimantan and Brunei, should be promoted as a team.
Meanwhile, during a press conference held before the closing ceremony, the Rector of UNJ, Prof Dr H Djaali said, “This conference is held in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of UNJ and 20th Anniversary of UMS. We hope that through this conference, both universities would be able to learn from each other, and together we can change people’s mindset, and that the community will see teaching as an honourable profession”.
The three-day-conference is held from June 4 to 6 this year, with a total of 217 speakers from Malaysia and Indonesia taking part.
Also present at the event was the UMS Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Shahril Yusof, who represented Vice Chancellor, Prof. Datuk Dr Mohd Harun Abdullah.