35,000 teachers to be hired to meet acute shortage

Thursday September 18, 2008

Thirty-five thousand new teachers will be recruited by the Education Ministry to meet the acute shortage of trained teachers in primary and secondary schools.
Deputy Education Minister Datuk Razali Ismail, who announced this, said the recruitment was vital to improve the teacher-to-classroom ratio from 15:10 to 17:10.
Stressing a point: Razali (seated centre) speaking to reporters while behind him are representatives from various teachers unions in George Town yesterday.
"This move is one of the ways to lessen teachers' burden in managing their daily teaching routine," he said after meeting 72 representatives from 24 teachers unions at a hotel here yesterday.
Razali said the ministry was always prepared to listen to issues raised by the teachers unions.
Among the matters raised was the need to reduce teachers' workload.
On the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English, Razali said at least 50% of students living in urban areas had shown significant progress in the subjects.
"Only those living in the rural areas are facing difficulties in coping. There is also a lack of good English teachers and the ministry is looking at these weaknesses," he said.
However, Razali said, teachers should not be entirely blamed over the issue.
"This is because all this while they have been using Bahasa Malaysia as the teaching medium. They need time to master the language," he said.
Razali also said the ministry was looking at ways to increase the number of support staff to manage computer labs.
"We need more hands to run the labs to enable teachers to concentrate on their work in classrooms," he added

TS