Accept your posting wherever that may be, newly appointed teachers were told yesterday.

“You will be posted throughout Sabah…some will be posted to islands where you will need to commute by boat; some to rural areas where you might have to walk for eight hours daily; some near rivers and so on,” said State Education director, Datuk Hajah Maimunah Suhaibul to the 547 newly appointed teachers at Wisma Muis here yesterday.

She reminded the new teachers that they had promised to accept their posting, irrespective of where they would be, when they applied to become teachers.

She also reminded that teachers were posted to areas where their services were needed most.

“Where there are students, teachers will be posted there,” she said.

Maimunah also said that the challenges facing teachers posted to rural and urban areas were different.

She explained that schools in the rural parts of Sabah only had a small number of students, but teachers might have to walk for hours to reach the school they would be teaching.

However, schools in the urban areas were often congested with students, she said.

“There are 50 students for each class, for example. So on a daily basis, a teacher posted there will have to go through 200 exercise books if they have four classes every day,” she said.

“So, I am requesting that no plea for translocation will happen…please don’t request to work closer to your home,” appealed Maimunah.

Out of the 547 teachers who received their appointment letters yesterday, 356 will be posted to primary schools.

Maimunah said that the State was only six per cent short of reaching the 90 per cent target of getting Sabahans to teach in primary schools in the State.

“We are at 84 per cent now. We have six percent to reach by the year 2018,” she said.

On secondary schools in the State, the percentage of Sabahans teaching there is 76 per cent.

“So, we still have a lot of work to do for our secondary schools,” she said.

In her speech, Maimunah also reminded the newly appointed teachers that they were now civil servants, which meant that the government of the day was their employer.

“As civil servants, we are the implementing agents of the government’s policy,” she said.

She added that they were required to be loyal to the government of the day.

She also said that once they accepted their appointment, they were no longer free to talk against the government.

“I hope you understand this. We are civil servants. If you do not like it, there are many jobs outside of the civil service,” she said.

Maimunah also reminded that they were lucky to have received their appointment and urged them to remember their peers who were still waiting.

“I hope you are keen on teaching and not just in it because there are no other jobs. We want dedicated and committed teachers to teach the young,” she said.

She added that as teachers, their role was to raise the dignity of the young and to help develop them to their fullest potential.

“We must treat all our students as having potential to be developed,” she concluded.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by Jenne Lajiun

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