Five initiatives to reduce teachers’ workload

SERDANG: The Ministry of Education have outlined five initiatives and nine interventions to reduce the burden of teachers, which begins in January this year.

Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik said all the initiatives were introduced to ensure that the teaching process was focused on teachers teaching and working happily rather than making the noble task something torturing and burdensome.

“The ministry will endeavour to bring teachers back to the tasks of educating and teaching by abolishing clerical duties which are found to be disturbing the main task of teachers prior to this,” he said when delivering his message, “Education For All, Everyone’s Responsibility” at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) here yesterday.

Maszlee said the first initiative was to facilitate the management of file and documentation through three interventions, namely, the Textbook Loan Scheme (SPBT), the committee file and the classroom assessment report (PBD).

For the management of SPBT, the ministry had improved the recording process where teachers did not need to write acquisitions, reduction in the number of file and filling of information via softcopy, he said.

For committee file management, the school was given autonomy in determining the number of committee files and the documents would be kept, either a softcopy or hardcopy copy, based on the school’s need and suitability, he said.

“For PBD reporting, printouts only need to be done based on school needs. The PBD implementation guide has also been uploaded to the Curriculum Development Division (BPK) website,” he said.

Maszlee said the second initiative was about managing data and online systems that would be done through two interventions, that all data collection and acquisition of school, teachers and pupils should be taken from the existing data sources in the systems adopted by all parties in the ministry.

The intervention also involves a full-fledged online attendance system, which meant the teachers would no longer have to fill in the pupils’ arrival book, while for schools with no internet access, pupil attendance could be manually recorded in the student’s attendance schedule, he said.

Following the abolition of the Level 1 Exam, Maszlee said the third initiative in reducing the burden of teachers was that schools were allowed to devise themselves the Literacy and Numeracy (LINUS) implementation that was appropriate to the needs of the students.

He said schools must identify Level 1 students who had difficulty mastering reading, writing and calculating skills as well as providing appropriate intervention or rehabilitation at the school level.

Maszlee said the fourth initiative was related to the standardisation of forms and the monitoring process which were implemented involving involving two interventions to ensure that teachers were no longer burdened with filling the canteen cleanliness, safety and rating forms.

Through this, all canteen operators were required to complete the Canteen SelfAssessment Form and the validation would be made by the Student Affairs Senior Assistant (HEM) only, while the Cleaning and Security Contractor’s Performance and Security service performance form was managed by the contractor and would be regulated and approved by the Principal or Headmaster or Senior Assistant only, he said.