SIBU: Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) called on the Ministry of Education to accord special attention to rural folk in Sabah and Sarawak to motivate them in giving priority to their children’s education.
This was because the evidence of success must be visible as a starting point in order to convince these folk to place more emphasis on their children’s education, said its president William Ghani Bina.
Citing the Penans as an example, he suggested that the ministry could, perhaps, accept those with less than five credits to be trained as teachers.
“This will prove to those in the rural areas that education open doors and can change their lives.
“Seeing their own people becoming teachers or employed in the public sector, getting monthly salary and how this changes their socio-economic status will motivate them to give more focus on their children’s education.
“Otherwise, they will not be able to understand the importance of education,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday when responding to Kapit MP Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi’s call for parents to pay more attention to their children’s education.
Supporting the view, Ghani, however, felt it was more practical to make available the evidence of success for them to better comprehend the importance of education.
While there were more than 100,000 applications for teachers nationwide each year, only about 5,000 made the grade, he disclosed.
To this, he added: “They should get more applicants from Sabah and Sarawak especially the rural areas.”
Again, giving an example, he said getting a teacher from the Penan community would avoid problems of language barrier.
Among others, as the teacher hailed from the same community, he was better accustomed to their culture.
“This will also reduce the headache of teachers requesting for transfer back to their hometown,” he said.
Ghani suggested that on normal days, instructors could monitor the performance of these teachers and during school holidays they could be sent to teachers training colleges for training.