Senior minister neglected 2 important education issues: Harapan

Senior Minister (Education) Mohd Radzi Md Jidin failed to address two important issues in the education sector, the opposition alleged.

According to the Pakatan Harapan Education Committee, the two issues are weakened student motivation due to the abolition of the Form Three Assessment (PT3) and Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR), as well as an increasing non-teaching workload faced by teachers.

“We commend two initiatives announced by the minister during his address recently, namely increasing the intake for teachers and simplifying the transfer process for educators.

“However, there are still a number of pertinent issues that the ministry is yet to address,” the committee said in a statement last night, citing the issues mentioned above.

According to the committee, the abolition of the two exams to switch to classroom-based assessment has hampered the education process at schools and demotivated students.

“Aside from that, teachers are being continuously burdened with non-teaching duties, which is yet to be addressed by the ministry, despite the issue being repeatedly raised by educators.

“This problem should be addressed immediately as the pressure faced by teachers can lower their work performance, which in turn, affects their students,” said the committee.

Another issue that has to be paid attention to is overcoming the school dropout rate, they added.

“We are of the opinion that the senior education minister is unable to address the issues raised above, which were being solved by the education minister and his deputy between 2018 and 2020,” the statement read.

Those roles at the time of the Harapan federal administration were held by Maszlee Malik and Teo Nie Ching. - Mkini