An urgent roundtable discussion is needed to discuss the way forward involving the issue of teacher shortages in vernacular schools, says Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong.
The Ayer Hitam MP said he viewed the matter seriously as there were some inconsistencies in the data given by the Education Ministry from month to month.
Read more at https://tinyurl.com/m9jvfzfp
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
The Ayer Hitam MP said he viewed the matter seriously as there were some inconsistencies in the data given by the Education Ministry from month to month.
Read more at https://tinyurl.com/m9jvfzfp
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 [President of Singapore] "Lastly, I want to ask, 010400, I am serious about the lack of teachers. I was shocked when Sinchu was in the front page yesterday, and five pages of the paper, two days in a row, this is all about the lack of teachers. What is the problem? The ministry gives data, this month it's different, this month it's different. That's the problem.
00:22 [President of Singapore] "At first, we said before the retagging, there were thousands of teachers late in SJKC. After the retagging, it was said that it has now dropped to 540. There are late in the position."
00:35 [President of Singapore] "Then suddenly, the minister in the court said, '36,718 are the positions that have been approved. The ones that are filled are 35,364. This is the easy math. Just subtract the lack of teachers, it's 1,354. Just a simple math, we can't do it."
01:00 [President of Singapore] "We said, the minister said, 'There is no need to train Chinese teachers in SJKC. If this is the case, every year, 500-600 Chinese teachers will be required. Six years, this is a serious problem.
01:19 [President of Singapore] "We said, 'Six years, there is no need to train. This is a serious problem. Six years, this is a serious problem. There is a reality, 1,354 is not enough. So we have to train."
01:33 [President of Singapore] "I want to tell you, the most important thing is that in the next six years, all of them will be Chinese. Why? In 2007, all of the SJKC teachers were considered Chinese. Because of the disqualification, all of the subjects, except for Malay and English, were in their own languages.
01:52 But the other subjects, like Math, Science, Moral, Art, Music, were all in Chinese. So the option of Chinese was not just to teach the subjects in Chinese.
02:04 Imagine, 1,380 minutes a week for year 1, 2, 3. The Chinese class only had subjects of 360 minutes a week. This is not all. 70% of the time was in BC. So they were multitasking.
02:23 They could not see the BC options. The same with the Tamil. The same problem. So I hope we can look back. The report asked the officers to look back and discuss with all the suspected former KPM officers.
02:39 So I think, until the time we have a roundtable discussion, we should discuss together. For example, the IPRD said the plan was 1,000. But they took 800 because 200 were not submitted.
02:54 There were shortfalls of 200. Then the IPG, who passed, did not know how many. Finally, the daily school. They sent it to the school and the school said, "This is what was passed by the SPP."
03:04 The number was not enough. So there were shortfalls. So we have to sit down, discuss, and resolve this problem for the good image of the government.
03:14 That's all. Thank you.
03:16 [END]