Let teachers teach

THE Education Minister’s call to set up teachers’ lounges in schools as a rest area is a welcome move.

Happy teachers do make effective and good teachers.

All schools have staff rooms where teachers rest during their free time or in between classes.

As the minister has pointed out the staff rooms are more work based rooms rather than rest areas for teachers.

It was reported last week that Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik asked schools to set up teachers’ lounges to provide educators with an area to rest in between classes.

Based on his visits to schools, he said there should be a dedicated area for teachers to rest in between classes or after classes, apart from the teachers’ rooms, which are for them to focus on work.

Having these dedicated rest areas would motivate the teachers and indirectly, increase the quality of their work, he added.

The move to set up teachers’ lounges was among the 12 initiatives presented by the ministry to improve schools last year.

However if the job scope of teachers in schools is not reduced, the whole idea of having teachers’ lounges would be a ‘white elephant’.

Teachers are bogged down with work from the moment they clock in to the time they clock out.

There are many things to do apart from their teaching schedule, teachers have to look into clerical and administrative duties.

The job scope of teachers would entail lesson planning, selecting learning materials, evaluating and grading students’ work, managing student discipline and supervising extra-curricular activities.

Sadly, many teachers spend a lot more time doing many non teaching duties other than teaching.

The list of ‘extra’ duties teachers have to do is endless.

Though the ‘extras’ are related to the job, they are depriving and robbing teachers of their valuable time in effective lesson preparation and meaningful classroom interaction.

Teachers today are faced with many students, much paperwork, too little time for lesson preparation and too many meetings, courses and deadlines.

The core business or primary function of teachers is teaching and no one else can substitute the teacher in the classroom.

Schools should employ clerks or teaching assistants to do the paperwork.

Good news for teachers would not be in the form of monetary increments or cash benefits, it would be in the reduction of workload for teachers.

Therefore let teachers teach and facilitate the dissemination of knowledge, skills and experience.