WHAT ARE MUHYIDDIN & KA SIONG DOING? New school year but same old problems!

When actually could the Chinese primary school's teacher shortage problem be solved?

Last year, the Cabinet instructed the set up of a special committee on shortage of teachers in Chinese primary schools headed by Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong to hold roundtable meetings and draw up a long-term strategy to completely solve the problem.

It seems hopeless to solve the shortage of teachers in the SRJKC this year. Wee estimated that the number of teacher shortage this year would drop to three digits for the first time from four digits last year. However, Johor Bharu district Chinese Primary School Development Committee chairman Huang Jian Feng said that more than 1,000 teachers are still needed to fill the vacancies in Chinese primary schools.

The problem of teacher shortage in the SJKC has existed for decades. This is a weakness in planning and over the years, only piecemeal measures have been taken, such as hiring temporary teachers to meet urgent needs, but there was no solution to the overall problem over all these years. This year, the Education Ministry again rushed to hand over teacher-to-be lists to state Education Departments and the situation is expected to be stabilised only in the second week of the new school year.

In fact, not only Chinese primary schools are facing teacher shortage, the SRK is also facing a shortage of English teachers. During a recent visit to India, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak proposed to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the recruitment of teachers from India who are fluent in English. Earlier, Malaysia have also recruited 75 English teachers from the US.

Incredibly, the Federation of Chinese Associations of Malaysia (Hua Zong) did not oppose to the import of Indian teachers. Instead, it asked the government to bring in also teachers from China to teach in Chinese primary schools, as well as Chinese independent schools.

Address root of problem, not simply import

The problem of teacher shortage should be addressed from its root, namely to strengthen the training for local teachers, instead of relying on foreign teachers. How are foreign teachers, who would come and go, establish an education system with local features, let alone drive the country to become an advanced state?

Manufacturing, construction, plantations, food and beverage industry, furniture and other labour-intensive sectors have now been dominated by foreign labours. If even the education field allows the access of foreigners, together with the need to bring in foreign engineers due to the sharp decrease of Science stream students, the employment field will sooner or later be hollowed out. All sectors would be dominated by foreigners and Malaysians would collectively degenerate and become blunt.

In addition to the Education Ministry's planning, the shortage of teachers might also related to the teacher training courses. Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin pointed out in July last year that the Ministry was very concerned about the decline in English proficiency among students. The Ministry also found that some among the 60,000 English teachers being tested were actually not eligible to teach English. Therefore, these teachers needed to be retrained.

Retraining after training would not only waste national resources, but also lead to work dovetail problems.

Another key is, the decline of local university graduates' quality has made many of them fail to meet the requirements in the workplace. As a result, the government is forced to spend money for retraining. Of course, there is no exception for fresh teachers.

Since the existing teachers are not competent, the Education Ministry plans to offer re-contract to 600 retired English teachers, showing that young teachers are not as good as veteran teachers. Quality decline is an issue as a whole involving primary students, secondary students, university students and teachers, and it has now formed a vicious cycle.

From planning, bringing in foreign teachers to teachers' attitude in complaining the new school-based assessment system (PBS), it is worrying that whether the ambitious targets of the National Education Blueprint are achievable.

Education is the foundation of a country and it will be doomed if the system is full of loopholes!

-Sin Chew Daily