KUALA LUMPUR – A group of education graduates are crying foul over apparent flaws and alleged misconduct in the Education Ministry’s special one-off recruitment of teachers scheme.
Supported by human rights group Suara Rakyat Malaysia, the band of about 13 prospective educators brought their grievances to Putrajaya and handed over a memorandum detailing their complaints to an Education Ministry official today.
They claimed that the scheme, announced by Education Minister Datuk Mohd Radzi Md Jidin on June 20 last year and which aimed to hire 18,702 people, has brought about much unfairness and caused unease among applicants.
They also accused the Education Service Commission (SPP), which is responsible for appointing candidates, of acting “without transparency and integrity”.
Represented by a few graduates from Universiti Malaya, Sultan Idris Education University and the Management and Science University (MSU), the group alleged that 79 final-year applicants were dropped from the scheme after they were unable to produce some documents.
Speaking to media outside the ministry’s complex, MSU Education Science graduate Siti Khadijah explained that such eliminations were confusing as it is well known that final-year students do not yet possess certain documents, including academic transcripts and graduation letters. However, these are required for the application, they said.
“Even after they had passed the interviews, their applications were still denied due to their inability to produce the relevant documents.
“However, there were also other candidates in the same predicament who received a placement after the cut-off date on December 15 last year,” the spokesperson for the group said.
Siti stressed that candidates who had been denied a spot due to problems with documentation should be given a second chance as they had already passed the requisite interview sessions.
Calling for the ministry to explain such “double-standards”, Siti also claimed that when the group had earlier approached the SPP, the commission had admitted that there were mistakes during the selection process.
“We highlighted the issues faced by candidates and provided evidence of SPP acting unfairly. In response, they (SPP) disclosed that there were certain errors throughout the appointment procedure.
“They attributed the mistakes to them either overlooking certain matters or having to deal with technical problems in the system,” she said, adding that the admission of wrongdoing is proof of the ambiguous and dishonest nature of the SPP when selecting candidates.
Another point of contention for the group is how the SPP has allegedly been giving priority to candidates who do not have educational certification.
Siti said that the selection of those from non-educational backgrounds is in blatant disregard of the situation faced by the nation and a spit on the faces of those who have studied long and hard to earn their qualifications.
“It is common knowledge that there is an oversupply of qualified teachers in the country. This issue has yet to be solved and instead of giving placements to the many education graduates, the SPP is focusing on admitting those who have no professional education skills whatsoever.
“Why are they giving precedence to those who do not specialise in education? Priority should be given to us as we have dedicated ourselves to the teaching profession for up to four years as part of our Bachelor’s degree programme in education,” she said.
The allegations of the group are in direct contradiction with a statement made by the SPP on July 6 last year, where it had said that priority would be given to graduates in education, whether from local public or private universities or overseas graduates.
“This exercise will be extended to graduates who are non-education majors through various methods of appointment in the next phase if there are still vacancies that could not be filled by education graduates,” it had said. – The Vibes, March 7, 2022
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