Work together, parents and teachers told

THE National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) has urged parents to work together with teachers to ensure online classes go smoothly, reported Sin Chew Daily.

Responding to a recent incident of a parent berating a teacher on WhatsApp for not waking a child up in time for classes, NUTP secretary-general Harry Tan said both parties should discuss the matter when a misunderstanding arises.

“Teachers need patience. It is part of our job to teach and make the world a better place.

“If there is any misunderstanding, there needs to be a discussion,” he said, pointing out that in Malaysia, teachers had not received any training on how to conduct home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) and were forced to learn it on the job with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Due to the pandemic, we have entered a new normal. We need to carry out PdPR to ensure the safety of the students and also to ensure that they do not fall behind in classes,” he said.

Tan added that teachers were doing their best to learn how to conduct PdPR and assured the public that they would work with both private and public institutions to enhance the online learning experience for students.

Recently, screenshots of a WhatsApp conversation showing a teacher being accused of not fulfilling his duties by failing to wake up one of his students in time for the class, went viral online.

“If parents and children have selfdiscipline, why do we still need teachers? Why am I still paying school fees? Don’t parents need to go to work?” the parent said in frustration.

However, many other parents in the group came to the defence of the teacher, saying that waking up the child was the parent’s job.

> A man from Shandong, China, who picked up a tattered old sofa by the side of the road was surprised to find not only cash but also a pouch filled with gold jewellery in it, reported Oriental Daily.

Local resident and furniture-maker Yang Jianling found a damaged sofa by the side of Liu Gong Dao road and decided to bring it home, thinking that he could still find a use for the wood.

He decided to take the sofa apart on May 1 and was surprised to find a wad of cash as well as a pouch filled with jewellery falling out of it.

Jianling immediately contacted his brother Yang Jianchun and later decided that the best course of action would be to contact the local media in order to find the rightful owner.

“It is not ours. We do not want it,” Jianling was reported to have said.