NUTP thanks ministry for helping sued teachers

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) has thanked the Education Ministry for its concern in helping teachers sued by parents over incidents in schools.

However, measures must be implemented to reduce the number of disciplinary cases in schools.

NUTP president Kamarozaman Abd Razak said the number of counsellors in schools needed to be increased from the ratio of one teacher to 500 students, to one teacher to 250 students.

“School counsellors are needed to ease tension when there are conflicts between students and teachers.

“At times, school counsellors are bombarded with school programmes and have to juggle their tasks and, thus, focus less on individual counselling, especially in major cities, such as Johor Baru, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Selangor.”

He said there was a need for disciplinary teachers to be equipped with basic psychological knowledge so that they could use different approaches on students, besides physical punishment.

He said if there was a court case involving teachers, there was no defence for teachers except from NUTP and non-governmental organisations, thus, putting pressure on teachers.

“This move will motivate teachers as they would feel that there is a party who will stand up for them,” he said, adding that there was an increase in parents taking matters to court.