Teachers ill-equipped to conduct co-curricular activities, says NUTP

 

Teachers should focus on academic subjects, while co-curricular activities are outsourced to people who are qualified, says official from teachers’ union.

KUALA LUMPUR: Teachers do not have the proper and adequate training required to conduct co-curricular activities and should focus on academic subjects, says an education expert.

National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) vice-president Wak Jemah @ Mimah Kampok said teachers were not equipped to juggle both academic subjects and co-curricular activities.

“We do not have the right training to run co-curricular activities and clubs.

“It has always been a challenge for us (to do both) and this issue has been brought up by teachers many times,” she said in a panel discussion at the 2022 National Education and Learning Summit today.

She added there were many aspects of documentation and reporting required to properly conduct these activities and it took up too much time.

“You have to plan the programme and then analyse students’ performance. If a student doesn’t do well in the activity, you have to plan ways for them to improve.”

She said it would be better if the teaching of these activities was outsourced to qualified people who were trained to help students excel in these areas.

In addition to the lack of adequate training for teachers, Wak also said their ability to deliver quality co-curricular education was hindered by constant rotations.

“Every year, teachers will be rotated to manage different co-curricular activities. So, a single teacher ends up wearing many hats.

“Teachers should focus on academic subjects, while co-curricular activities can be handled by someone who is qualified”. - FMT