377 new primary teachers get letters
Published on: Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: A total of 377 new primary school teachers received their appointment letters from the Education Department, Monday, thanks to vacancies made available through a special transfer window for 300 teachers from the peninsula and Sarawak in mid-July. Education Director Maimunah Suhaibul (pic) said this was in line with the recommendations of the Government that 90 per cent of teachers in Sabah and Sarawak be locals, saying many of them would be deployed to rural districts where teaching manpower is badly needed. The appointment of these teachers, with an addition of 248 others who received appointment letters on June 16, saw Sabah hitting 82 per cent of the 90:10 initiative.
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The department also handed appointment letters to 34 secondary school interim teachers. "The Education Department realised that there is a huge gap between teachers in the urban and rural areas. "Currently there are excess teachers in the districts near the city centre like the city, Penampang, Tuaran, Papar, Kota Belud, Beaufort, Keningau," she said during a briefing on the new teachers' appointment, here. She said for the remaining eight per cent, the department will stagger the recruitment over three years until 2018.
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"Currently, we are looking to grow the number of teachers around 3.2 per cent a year in the available time we have," she said. Maimunah said the department used to face a lot of pressure in the redeployment of teachers in the past due to various factors such as humanity, health and depression among these teachers who had to be given consideration before approving transfers.
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Towards this end, she hoped with the deployment of the new teachers, the shortage of teachers in these areas would be resolved for now, saying the new teachers would still have opportunities to climb the career ladder in future. Currently there are around 25,883 primary school teachers across Sabah, but the new appointments have minimised the shortage, she said. On another development, it is understood the appointment of secondary school teachers would commence this August. "It is still a long way to go to meet the 90 per cent need for secondary school teachers," said Maimunah. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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