KUALA LUMPUR: The Education Ministry has outlined nine ‘interventions’ set to be implemented from January next year to reduce the burden on teachers.
Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik, in announcing this, however said that these interventions, which will be split into five initiatives, will only be unveiled during the New Year address in January.
He said these interventions were the outcome of 16 engagement sessions between the ministry and the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) which began in July.
“Apart from the ministry, the implementation will also involve state and district education departments as well as schools.
“The task facing educators grows ever more challenging as on top of teaching our young, the teachers’ job has also been added on by irrelevant clerical work which hampers them from focusing on classroom teaching.
“As such, the only way to ensure that teachers return to the task of educating with joy and drive are to identify these causes,” he said.
Maszlee was speaking to the press after officiating the NUTO Special Assembly at the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade) headquarters.
Also present were NUTP president Kamarozaman Abd Razak and its secretary-general Harry Tan.
Commenting further, Maszlee said more than 70 suggestions have been put forward by NUTP, which represents 230,000 teachers nationwide, including Sabah and Sarawak.
In August, the ministry said that 2,123 teachers were identified last year as having medium to high stress levels. Studies showed that the stress was caused by a host of factors such as family issues, finances, work burden, not being appreciated for their work, and lack of training to cope with stress.
