PUTRAJAYA: A code of ethics should be formed for parents which should include preventing them from attacking teachers, said the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP).
Its president Kamarozaman Abd Razak said parents today easily believed their children and would attack the teachers when they were unhappy, resulting in many teachers being afraid of taking disciplinary action against problematic students.
“Sometimes, the issue is small, so they should be professional and meet the school head first, but instead, they attack the teachers,” he told reporters at the 21st NUTP Triennial Delegates Conference, here, Wednesday.
Proposing that the Education Ministry work with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development to create the code of ethics for parents, Kamarozaman said such a code had been formed in many developed countries such as Sweden.
Besides the code of ethics, the 191 delegates at the four-day conference, which ends today, also discussed the issue of the second wave of the Malaysian Education Quality Standard which was not really understood by teachers due to unclear information.
On the issue of school sessions which were not uniform, the delegates urged all schools to observe the official circular requiring the sessions to start at 7.40am.
Kamarozaman said the conference also discussed restructuring of the Education Ministry to give more authority to the respective state education departments and district education offices to make decisions.
He said the NUTP urged the ministry to provide a detailed explanation of the restructuring and refer to it before structuring any post, especially at the district level.
Kamarozaman said the NUTP was also concerned about the lack of guidance and counselling teachers in schools with a ratio of one teacher to 350 pupils in primary schools and one to 500 students in secondary schools.
“In some schools, the ordinary teachers are appointed as guidance teachers.
“This should not happen because a counsellor has to undergo training to tackle problematic students,” he said.
Kamarozaman added that the number of counselling teachers in schools should be increased to the ratio of 1:200. — Bernama