Department says redeployment involves 133 teachers in primary schools and 153 in secondary schools
KUCHING: Schools reopened this week amidst the buzz that 2,000 teachers from all over Sarawak were suddenly being transferred.
But a press statement issued by the Sarawak State Education Department yesterday said only 286 teachers were being redeployed with 133 of them from primary schools (four teachers redeployed between districts, 129 redeployed within districts) to carry out the ‘Upholding the Malay Language and Strengthening the Command of English’ policy that came into effect last
Dec 1.
The department said the number of teachers being redeployed (2,000) as reported in The Star yesterday was incorrect.
A total of 153 secondary school teachers (four redeployed across states; 69 teachers across districts; 80 within districts), were redeployed to “fulfill the needs and vacancies in new schools across the whole of Sarawak”.
The reshuffling was implemented throughout last year.
While relocation may be part and parcel of being a teacher, some teachers have lodged their complaints with Sarawak Teachers’ Union president William Ghani Bina who had already met with Education Department deputy director Datuk Norizan Hashim on the issue of their sudden redeployment. Ghani, who recommended redeploying young graduate teachers instead of teachers
with established families, said, “Those teachers who are unhappy about their redeployment will be lodging their appeals as soon as possible with the ministry.”
He hoped that teachers with established families would have lodged their appeals as well.
“I don’t want people to think education breaks up families and homes,” Ghani said on the duress teachers with families undergo when they live apart or have to be dispatched suddenly.
“We want to cultivate happy families and happy teachers. If the teachers are frustrated, they will be unhappy to teach and the students will suffer.”
While some teacher redeployments were issued by the ministry and the state Education Department or district offices, he suggested that the Ministry of Education consult the principals and District Officers to ensure a smoother process.
A reliable source from the education sector said staff quota for schools had to be lowered to redistribute manpower under the National Key Result Areas (NKRAs).
Due to financial constraint, additional vacancies for teachers could not be created, so the need to lower the quota for such employment, the source explained.
The source, who did not want to be named, said when teachers were deployed to do NKRAs, many schools ran short of teaching staff.
“Hence the need to re-post teachers to schools that are short-staffed,” he said.
He added: “If we look at the bigger picture, the government requires manpower to keep tabs on the progress of NKRAs but it is not economically
viable to get new staff at this stage.”
So schools with full or excess staff would have their staff strength reduced
by two or more, he reiterated.
The source, however, noted that the re-posting would not upset the teacher-student ratio.
According to him, the staff reduction occurred primarily in schools with Sixth Form classes as well as classes with Form 4 and 5 offering commercial subjects such as Commerce, Basic Accounting and Economics, citing these as two areas where reduction would not upset the balance of teaching and learning in schools.
Every school was given a quota of teachers at the beginning of each new term, where the quota is determined by the number of classes and the student population, he added.