Teachers plan demo over irrelevant workload
SEREMBAN:

Teachers are considering holding a nationwide demonstration if the Education Ministry does not reign in overzealous state education department heads and headmasters who burden them with “irrelevant work”.They claim to have reached “near breaking point” and left with no choice but to hold a demonstration so that the higher-ups would take note of their plight.The decision was taken by National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) delegates during a three-day meeting which ended here yesterday. There are some 350,000 teachers in service.Its president Lt Cdr (Rtd) Hashim Adnan said teachers’ were now reduced to mere reporters rather than allowed to focus on teaching.“We are tasked to do reports after reports, action plans and working papers; most of which are totally irrelevant to our work. I must say this has affected the quality of teaching and the victims are the students,” he told The Star.Hashim said state department heads never sought their views and would bulldoze whatever programme they wanted introduced in schools.It is understood that the proposal to demonstrate was made by delegates from several states which did not even have one student in the top 10 of last year’s SPM results announced on Thursday.“We are mostly doing clerical work in schools and among our duties include collecting irrelevant data, attending courses, organising programmes and doing correspondence work.“Also, since some schools were now Sekolah Berprestasi Tinggi, we are required to do plenty of documentation work every day ... we are unable to focus in class,” Hashim said.He said teachers were also unhappy with the Government over a proposal to transfer senior teachers to rural schools.The delegates want the ministry to hire more male teachers to check the problem of indiscipline in schools.Teachers were also unhappy as headmasters did not notify them of their appraisal at the end of the year. This had jeorpadised their chances for promotion.

Kata Pengetua:

1. Sebagai "saya yang menurut perintah", kita guru haruslah mematuhi segala arahan yang diturunkan. Bergantunglah kepada persatuan dan kesatuan guru untuk menyuara dan menyelesaikan dengan pihak atasan. Adakah cikgu dalam mana-mana kesatuan guru?

2. Pengetua yang menerima berbagai arahan dari KPM, JPN dan PPD. Pengetua tidak akan memapu untuk melakukan segala arahan tersebut. Maka, arahan tersebut diperturunkan kepada guru. Sebagai Pengetua, saya juga merasa banyaknya arahan yang diturunkan; ada kala mengelirukan, ada kala berganda, ada kala urgent walaupun macam tidak penting ... (saya tidak akan ulas panjang sangat!). Nasihat saya, sebagai kakitangan (dalam BI ialah servant), just do it!

3. Berkaitan dengan LNPT - saya tidak ada halangan untuk memberitahu guru / kakitangan. Masalahnya, LNPT dilihat sebagai membanding antara seorang guru dengan guru yang lain. Saya dapati guru boleh menerima markah LNPT itu, tetapi tidak boleh menerima apabila dia dibandingkan dengan guru lain. Walaupun saya memberitahu guru markahnya, dia akan "mencari" berapa markah guru lain dan mula membuat perbandingan. -- Salam sejahtera,
Hj Rambli Zainudin