KUALA LUMPUR – Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek should teach in a school for a week to understand teachers’ hardships, said opposition lawmaker Misbahul Munir Masduki (Parit Buntar-PN).
During his committee-level debate on the revised Budget 2023 for the Education Ministry, Misbahul said his fellow opposition members can resonate with the hardships faced by teachers, as a number of them are educators themselves.
In light of this, he told Fadhlina to put herself in the teachers’ shoes and teach for a week, claiming she lacked the experience to empathise with them.
“The education minister may lack the experience needed to be a teacher. If possible, go to a school and teach for a week,” he said.
“Don’t do your ‘practical’ as you did in Parliament, making us (MPs) students.
“Go to school and see how painful it is, the suffering of teachers who are dumped with heavy burden,” he added.
Misbahul’s remarks may be an ostensible reference to when Fadhlina turned the Dewan Rakyat into a “classroom” while taking on the “teacher” role during her winding-up speech at the policy level last month.
Misbahul also opined that Malaysian educators are the most vital human resource in the sector, and their hardships must be taken into consideration.
He lamented how educators have to take on so many responsibilities, such as school administration works, co-curricular activities, examinations, and parent-teacher matters, to the point they “bring their work home”.
As such, he said it was high time to hire officers and appoint staff members to manage matters unrelated to education.
He also suggested the ministry provide extra allowance to teachers, on top of their basic pay, to compensate for their many responsibilities. – The Vibes, March 28, 2023
