‘Use of peninsula religious teachers ‘temporary’, to overcome shortage’

KUCHING: Sarawak’s utilisation of the services of Islamic religious teachers from Peninsular Malaysia is a temporary measure caused by the current shortage faced by the state.

Minister of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said the longterm plan is to encourage local students to take up Islamic studies and become religious teachers to overcome the shortage.

“We are in the midst of increasing the number of teachers from amongst us but it needs time. We need more students taking up this field and continuing to university level.

“For now, we will use the service of teachers from West Malaysia, mainly from Kelantan and Terengganu, to overcome the shortage,” she said when met yesterday.

F at i ma h , who e a r l i e r represented Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg at the launching of the fi rst International Conference on Innovative Sciences and Technologies for Research and Education ( lnnoSTRE) 2018, said to- date, Sarawak is short by some 500 Islamic religious teachers at primary school level and 200 at secondary school level.

She was responding to the call made by Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik who, in his recent parliamentary speech, advised Islamic studies teachers from Kelantan and Terengganu not to return to Peninsular Malaysia for the time being, but to continue serving in Sabah and Sarawak due to shortage of religious teachers in both states.

On Maszlee’s use of the term ‘ medan dakwah’ ( propagation field) in his appeal to religious teachers serving in the two states, Fatimah said she was unsure what the Education Minister had meant.

“If he means to ensure Muslim students (in Sabah and Sarawak) get sufficient religious education, that we can accept but if it is another context, it may be hard to accept because we respect one another’s religion.

“This is because we must be very careful with regards to anything religious so as not to affect the unity and harmony amongst the people.

“This ( being very careful) includes ministers so that what we say is not misunderstood, because we don’t want a situation where there are ill feelings amongst the multiracial people,” she said.