Many unaware of vacancies for teachers

The Star

UNITED Chinese School Teachers Association (Jiao Zong) has refuted an Education Ministry claim that no Chinese applied for the position of temporary teacher at Chinese schools, reported China Press.

The daily quoted Jiao Zong president Ong Chiow Chuan as saying that the statement was not true as many prospective candidates were not aware of available vacancies as the ministry only placed recruitment advertisements in Malay newspapers.

“How are these people going to apply for the posts when they are not aware of the recruitment campaign?”

He said some teachers at Chinese schools, who were sent for training from December to March to prepare them to be counsellors, found out on their return that they had been replaced by Malay teachers who did not understand Chinese.

“Jiao Zong opposes this unreasonable move as Malay teachers, who cannot understand Chinese, do not have what it takes to counsel students at Chinese schools,” he said.

He added that the department had not considered the real needs of Chinese schools when it made such a move.