MOE takes various approaches to resolve teacher, school issues within 100-day target

KUALA LUMPUR: The Education Ministry (MOE) has identified and compiled various approaches to resolve two main issues, namely involving school management and teacher welfare, under the 100-day Aspirasi Keluarga Malaysia (Malaysian Family Aspirations) programme.

Its senior minister, Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin said in preparing education infrastructure that was safe and conducive, the ministry had appealed to the government to implement the regularisation of land so that projects to upgrade and rebuild dilapidated schools could be done immediately.

He said this was important as the main constraints to upgrade and rebuild dilapidated schools in some areas were related to the status of the land which did not yet belong to the Federal Lands Commissioner (PTP).

"When it is not PTP land, then we (MOE) cannot build (a school) on the said land even though there is an allocation. That is why there are so many delays (in the construction of school buildings).

"That is why we have requested for land legalisation because out of more than 10,000 schools nationwide, there is still land that does not belong to the PTP. There are lands owned by individuals, without complete documents and lands owned by local councils. There are Native Customary Rights (NCR) lands and many other types (of land)," he said on the Bernama TV talk show programme titled "Bual Bicara Koresponden Bernama" today.

Radzi said that as for teacher's welfare, the MOE had improved teacher exchange programmes through the eGTukar system, which allows applications to be made continuously compared to only twice a year previously.

He said through the system, teacher exchanges would be done based on vacancies in other states and not just focused on the states applied for.

"So the eGTukar system takes into account the welfare of teachers as 'Malaysian Families' and, hopefully, we can see an increase in the number of teachers who will be transferred (under the system) in the future," he said.

Meanwhile, on the recruitment of teachers to fill more than 18,000 vacancies, Radzi said the opportunity was also offered to graduates outside the field of education.

However, he said each selected graduate would have to go through certain training programmes provided by the MOE to ensure they were competent to teach the assigned subjects.

"In this context (recruitment), our priority is for graduates who have an education degree but because there is insufficient supply (graduates in education), we will also open recruitment to those who do not have an education degree.

"They will be appointed on a contract of service (CoS) basis and undergo training. This is one of the approaches we use to close the gap (vacancies)," he said.

-- BERNAMA