‘Don’t speculate on death of teachers’
Chong: Let Education Dept complete probe
SEREMBAN: Two teachers who apparently took their own lives in Selangor recently may have been suffering from health problems, the Deputy Education Minister said.
Datuk Chong Sin Woon said preliminary findings by the state Education Department showed that both teachers, who served at two different vernacular schools, had been unwell.
“The public should not speculate that they had been burdened with extra workload. Let the Education Department complete its probe,” he said after presenting aid to needy students at SJK(C) Pei Hua here.
Colleagues of a female teacher from a school in Sungai Way found her dead in her house on Jan 22 after she failed to turn up for work for three days.
The following day, a 45-year-old female teacher at another school in Kajang jumped off her apartment to her death.
Chong said teachers’ workload had been greatly reduced following several measures taken by the ministry.
“The ministry conducted a nationwide survey to study teachers’ workload after we received complaints.
“We then analysed the duties teachers had on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and did away with some of those,” he said.
Citing an example, Chong said previously teachers were required to key in students’ data on a daily basis for the ministry’s perusal and some had to do so in the middle of the night due to Internet connection problems.
The ministry had done away with this, he said.
“Teachers are now only required to keep such data in schools. We will ask the schools to provide us the data if and when we need it,” he said.
Chong said teachers were only required to attend Parent-Teacher Association meetings every few months, among others, although teachers at schools that were bigger and more active might be required to help out with fundraising activities.
He added that the ministry had also synchronised many of its computer systems for easier access.
However, Chong admitted that with the advent of social media applications such as WhatsApp, teachers these days might have more on their plate.
“It is the same for any other profession. We have no choice but to use these apps for work,” he said.
Chong said he welcomed feedback from the National Union of the Teaching Profession as well as non-governmental organisations to further improve teachers’ welfare.
“I have also been holding dialogues with teachers on a regular basis to hear them out.
“We have done many improvements through such meetings and we are open to more,” he added.