No plans to send 80,000 teachers to Sarawak

Deputy Education Minister Mohd Puad Zarkashi has urged Parti Rakyat Sarawak to check its facts before issuing comments to avoid negative peceptions.

PETALING JAYA: The Education Ministry has denied there was any move to transfer about 80,000 teachers from West Malaysia to Sarawak next year.

Deputy Education Minister Mohd Puad Zarkashi said as of May 11, there were 80,382 teachers in Sabah and Sarawak, both in primary and secondary schools and only 15,641 of the total were from the mainland.

“If we want to send 80,000 teachers from the mainland to Sarawak, who is going to teach in West Malaysia?,” said Mohd Puad when commenting on a report that Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) was deeply concerned because such a move would compromise the potential of teachers in Sarawak.

On May 25, PRS president James Masing had said that he was concerned with an alleged move by the Education Ministry to send additional teachers termed as “counselling teachers”.

Mohd Puad said PRS should get in touch with the Education Ministry for clarification first before commenting on such reports to avoid any negative perception.

He said the Education Ministry had always been receptive to efforts to increase the number of local teachers in Sabah and Sarawak to teach in their own respective states.

“Since last year we have been practising a 30:30:40 ratio in the policy of intake for teachers training institute.”

The ratio means 30% will be from Sabah and another 30% from Sarawak while the remaining 40% will be from West Malaysia.

“However, when we are faced with situations whereby there is a lack of teachers from Sabah and Sarawak who met the criteria for j-QAF grade teachers, English and Mandarin teachers, we need to recruit them from the mainland,” he said.

– Bernama