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Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe to poobalan.com by Email It would have been good if his claims were substantiated with statistics. The reason given by Deputy Education Minister Datuk Razali Ismail is that non-Malays are more interested in joining the private sector rather than the public sector as they feel the perks are better.
“From the feedback I get, they are not keen on making teaching their career. They prefer to become entrepreneurs as there are better prospects,” he said.
The above statement seem to condemn the Malays as lacking motivation, entrepreneurship, and dependent on government. Hmm….
One other possible reason is that the teachers can be posted to any part in the country. Even my cousin who is getting married soon is worried that she will be posted away from the future husband’s location. Secondly is the working environment in the schools – some are becoming very much alien as compared to those days – to much of religion. Even if teaching hours are shorter, the workload is heavy. Teachers might as well ask for normal 9 to 5 working hours. Finally, looking at discplinary issues in schools, teaching will soon be a high risk job. So, do one need all this trouble and stress?
Insisting that there is no quota system in the selection of teacher trainees, Deputy Education Minister Datuk Razali Ismail said although non-Malays are encouraged to join the service, many are still reluctant to do so.
“We are doing our best to attract the non-Malays but they are not applying. We do not select only Malays for teaching jobs,” he said.
Razali said there is a shortage of Chinese and Tamil teachers not only in vernacular schools but in national schools as well.
“In fact, I had also spoken with my colleague Dr Wee Ka Siong (Deputy Education Minister) on the possibility of holding campaigns to attract the Chinese to become teachers.
“We need to get the numbers to correct the racial imbalance,” he said Wednesday, adding that the ministry had also conducted “walk-in” interviews to attract non-Malays to teach in vernacular schools.
Razali was asked to comment if efforts are being made to get more non-Malays to join the teaching service to reflect the country’s multi-racial composition.
Asked if the non-Malays are staying away from the profession as they are not considered for promotions, Razali denied it.
“We don’t leave out the non-Malays when it comes to promotions. In fact, the ministry has even introduced the time-based promotions so that those eligible will be automatically promoted,” he said.
I think the imbalance is so much now, until its beyond repair. Unless there’s a discriminative policy to hire 70% non-Malays for the next 5 years (or something similar), the imbalance cannot be addressed. Just hiring few people per intake is meaningless
I suspect one reason why government sector needs non Malays is to take care of the office when festive season like Hari Raya occurs. Thus the racial imbalance needs to be addressed.
