• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
  • Archives
  • Subscribe
The Nut Graph

The Nut Graph

Making Sense of Politics & Pop Culture

  • Projects
    • MP Watch
    • Found in Conversation
  • Current Issues
    • 6 Words
    • Commentary
    • Features
    • Found in Quotation
    • News
  • Columns
  • Interviews
    • Exclusives
    • Found in Malaysia
  • Multimedia
    • Audio
    • Pictures
    • Videos
  • Corrections
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Vault
    • Found in Translation

Improving teacher-pupil ratio

February 23, 2009

KUALA LUMPUR, 23 Feb 2009: The government is actively working to improve the education delivery system by having one teacher for every 20 pupils, Public Service Director-General Tan Sri Ismail Adam said today.

He told Bernama that the new ratio would require more teachers to be recruited and trained.

At present, the ratio is one teacher to 40 pupils and there are some 360,000 teachers in the country or about 36% of the entire civil service.

In an immediate response, the 150,000-strong National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) welcomed the move, saying the new ratio is “ideal and a dream of every teacher.”

NUTP secretary-general Loke Yim Pheng said, however, that it would require some time before the policy could be fully implemented due to the shortage of trained teachers.

Ismail advised unemployed graduates to apply for teacher training courses.

Meanwhile, on the number of vacancies in the civil service, Ismail said, there were 20,000 for the support service and 45,000 for the managerial and professional levels.

He clarified that there would be no automatic employment of retrenched workers from the private sector into the civil service.

Those wanting to apply for government jobs would have to go through the normal process of applying and going for the interview with the Public Service Commission, he added.

As of yesterday, the number of retrenched workers had increased to 19,000 and another 80,000 had been temporarily laid off meaning they were not sacked but were either working on reduced salary or were on unpaid leave.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related Stories

Filed Under: News Tagged With: civil service, Director-General, Ismail Adam, Loke Yim Pheng, National Union of Teaching Profession, Public Service Department, pupil, ratio, retrenchement, teacher, workers

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. D Lim says

    February 24, 2009 at 8:17 am

    Ad hoc policies on education will not beat the decline in Malaysia’s educational standards. It is a LONG TERM strategy which requires political will and funding if we are to beat the odds to bring our country’s educational prowess into the world class arena.

    Whilst I salute the minister for wanting to decrease the student-teacher ratio in the first instance, I cannot help but think that he is doing it to “create jobs” for the unemployed graduates rather than seriously looking into lifting the standard in Malaysia’s education. The problem with using the educational system to soak up unemployed grads will incur high attrition rates when the economy picks up. Also, these grads may take up teaching as a last resort, not something they are interested in.

    If you care to read the McKinsey Report, a study on how some countries achieved high educational standards, one of the criteria is “teacher quality”.

    I hope the government will look into lifting educational standards on a long-term and wholesome approach, not ad hoc decisions. It is doomed to fail.

  2. kip says

    February 24, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    Do reduce the paper work for the teachers. It is already hard coping with the teaching the high number of students.

    Reducing the teacher-student ratio is the correct method if only it was implemented and enforced with the right will. If all talk and no work, it is like saying your mother is a female. Everyone knows that so get down and get the dirty work done instead of sitting on your comfortable chair and talk nonsense! Our education minister should be proactive in his ministerial profile instead of being too busy with his political survival and keris-waving.

    May Malaysia “one day” produce quality students who can push the country towards the next paradigm shift.

Primary Sidebar

Search

Twitter

My Tweets

Recent Comments

  • Wave33 on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Adam on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • PSTan on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • PSTan on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Andre Lai on The Nut Graph stops publication

Recent News

  • The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Nasihat tentang sepupu yang mengganggu perasaan
  • Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: The Sunni-Shia split and the answer to Muslim unity
  • Why Malaysia needs the national unity bills
  • Challenging government in the digital age: Lessons from Kidex
  • Najib’s failure
  • Babi, anjing, pondan: Jijik orang Islam Malaysia
  • Kidex and the law – What the government’s not telling you
  • Beyond Dyana Sofya
  • Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: Does Malaysia need hate speech laws?

Tags

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Anwar Ibrahim Barisan Nasional BN Bukit Selambau by-election dap Deborah Loh Ding Jo-Ann Election Commission elections Found in Malaysia Found in Quotation Gan Pei Ling government high court Hishammuddin Hussein ISA islam Jacqueline Ann Surin Khairy Jamaluddin KW Mak Lim Guan Eng Malaysia MCA Menteri Besar MP Watch Muhyiddin Yassin muslim Najib Razak Pakatan Rakyat Parliament Parti Keadilan Rakyat pas Penang Perak PKR police politics prime minister Selangor Shanon Shah Umno Wong Chin Huat Zedeck Siew

Footer

  • About The Nut Graph
  • Who Are We?
  • Our Contributors
  • Past Contributors
  • Guest Contributors
  • Editorial Policy
  • Comments & Columns
  • Copyright Policy
  • Web Accessibility Policy
  • Privacy Policy
The Nut Graph

© 2023 The Nut Graph