KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Private Preschool Consultative Council (MPPSS) was recently formed to advocate and address pressing issues regarding Early Childhood Education and quality in Sabah.
The council is made up of representatives from Persatuan Tadika Sabah, Chinese Chamber of Commerse Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Chinese Kindergarten Boards of Association, Persatuan Tadika Islam Sabah, Early Childhood Committee of the Education Commission of Archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu, Tadika-tadika Gereja under Sabah Council of Churches Sabah. It will in future also include representatives from the 23 districts in Sabah. On November 25, five committee members of MPPSS headed by its chairlady, Jenifer Anjek together with head of Private Education Unit, Haji Abdul Wahab Ampuan Hamzah, made a courtesy call on Sabah education director Datuk Hjh Maimunah Hj Suhaibul to discuss about preschool teacher qualifications for Sabah teachers.
The key issues discussed were the possibility for teachers over 45 years old to be allowed to continue renewing their permits even without a diploma qualification, due to the fact that they are not eligible to take PTPTN loans, and most of these teachers have at least 20 years of teaching experience and skills.
It was also discussed that Sabah be given an extension of time till 2025 due to various reasons that include, a lack of MQA certified institutions offering diploma courses in Sabah, financial difficulties faced by teachers to pay for their education when their monthly salaries at the minimum rates, and the lack of access to higher education for those who are in rural areas of Sabah.
In April 2016, the Ministry of Education approved the benchmarking of preschool teacher qualification to that of a Diploma in Early Childhood Education by 2020.
The aim of this move was to raise the quality of preschool education and teacher professionalism in Malaysia.
To date at least 80% of preschool teachers in the private kindergartens in Sabah do not meet this requirement.
MPPSS said this is a worrying issue as many private kindergartens may have to close down due to insufficient qualified staff come year 2020. Higher staff salary scale due to higher qualification compounded by the increasing costs of goods and materials and kindergartens that are smaller in scale both in rural and urban areas will be a challenge.
“Kindergartens in rural areas will face a bigger challenge especially with the collection of school fees at a very minimum rate or even free! We could be facing with a decrease in the provision of early childhood education for children in Sabah more so in rural areas,” it said.
“Working towards achieving quality preschool education is a good goal to work towards. However, we must also consider a realistic time frame and strategies to achieve these goals. Each state has a different scenario, for Sabah we have many areas that need improvement in terms of infrastructure and finance. It is hoped that our state government will take into consideration the issues that are happening in our state and together we can provide quality preschool education that will benefit both children in the urban and rural areas of Sabah,” added MPPSS in a statement yesterday.