The Education Ministry will give local candidates priority when it comes to teaching in East Malaysia, but quality of teachers must not be compromised.
Deputy Education Minister Wee Ka Siong when stressing this said Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who is also the Education Minister, was of the opinion of giving priority to Sabahans and Sarawakians to teach in both States, as long as they are qualified.
“Our ministry’s stand is – we must get qualified candidates to apply for Kursus Perguruan Lepas (KPL) SPM courses and Kursus Perguruan Lepas Ijazah (KPLI).
“We cannot just offer a place to any person, if the candidate cannot graduate because of the non-compliance of basic qualification, we don’t want to engage in that situation.
“In other words, to give top priority to Sabahans and Sarawakians, you see we cannot continue to give Sabah all the temporary teachers.
“We want them to have qualified teachers and if we don’t send them the qualified teachers, they will say we marginalized Sabah and Sarawak, so you see we are in a difficult position,” he told reporters after visiting the site for SJK (C) Chee Hwa today.
He was responding to reports published in papers today, where Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) president Joseph Pairin Kitingan has urged the Ministry to extend the contracts of 578 Attachment Teachers (Guru Sandaran Tidak Terlatih (GSTT) in Sabah whose term ended last year.
Pairin, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah, said such an extension was necessary since there was a shortage of teachers in Sabah, especially in rural and interior areas, but the Ministry was instead considering sending teachers from Peninsular Malaysia to overcome the shortage.
Wee said every year the Ministry recruits thousands of application for teaching positions in all categories of schools and hoped to get the support from Sabah politicians and leaders to bring in more locals interested in the profession and urge them to go for walk-in interviews, this March.
“Intake for KPL SPM will start next month and I hope the people of Sabah will take the initiative to apply for teachers training institutes to increase the number of qualified teachers,” he added.
Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi on Saturday had said that the government will continue to send teachers from the Peninsular, to Sabah and Sarawak, until the two states had enough teachers of their own to meet the need.
Dr Mohd Puad said the two states were still unable to meet the quota of teachers according to demand, even with the open interviews conducted in both states.
– Bernama
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