‘Safeguard welfare, service of teachers in low enrolment schools’
SIBU: The government needs to safeguard the welfare and service of the teachers should it decide to implement the proposal for schools with low student enrolment to be centralised to improve performance and facilities in future.
While rendering full support to the initiative voiced out by Minister for Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin Jawong, Sarawak Bumiputera Teachers Union ( KGBS) stated that the position of the headmasters and senior assistants of the affected schools need to be taken into consideration.
“Although this suggestion is viewed as bringing about positive impact towards upping the state’s education performance, KGBS would like to remind the government that the welfare and service of the teachers in the schools involved need to be safeguarded and taken into consideration.
“For example, if there are three schools that need to be merged, what then will be the position of these headmasters and senior assistants (in the schools involved)? KGBS does not want to see other issues cropping up later such as headmasters and senior assistants viewing themselves as being downgraded, if the suggestion becomes a reality in future.
“In this regard, KGBS asserts that these issues also need to be looked into and studied thoroughly,” KGBS president Ahmad Malie told The Borneo Post yesterday.
He was commenting on Manyin’s recent statement that for many years, Sarawakian schools ranked a lowly 13 out of 15 in overall performance of schools, which he attributed to lack of facilities and specialist teachers.
Manyin had said this was because there were too many schools scattered all over the state and many of them had very low enrolment, adding that schools with 150 students and below were considered as those with low enrolment.
To overcome the problem, he suggested for these schools to be merged into centralised schools within the area and parents should opt to send their children to these centralised schools which will have better facilities and more staff.
On this, Ahmad said as KGBS had stressed previously, it is always supportive of the initiatives and moves by the government to improve the state’s education performance, what more when the initiative is voiced by Manyin himself.
He gave his assurance that KGBS would give its full support for the good of Sarawak’s future generations.
He pointed out that the issue raised by Manyin in actual fact had been long fought for by the union but because of the lack of support from various parties and the constraints stated by Manyin, the issue was left on the backburner.
As the issue was brought up again and has become the main agenda for the state’s Ministry for Education, Science and Technological Research, it is timely for KGBS to give full support to the government for the issue to be resolved and eventually realised in time to come, Ahmad added.
“Therefore, we ( KGBS) assure of our full support and willingness to work together with the government if given room as well as invited for collaborative efforts to tackle this issue holistically,” he said.