KUALA LUMPUR – The Education Ministry has introduced the subject cluster method for the one-off intake of teachers to ensure there is no oversupply of graduates with education degrees.
Education Minister Datuk Radzi Jidin said the approach was adopted to provide more opportunities for graduates to apply based on their bachelor's degree mapping to any suitable subjects.
“Graduates with certain areas of specialisation can apply to fill vacancies in other subjects categorised under the same cluster and this new approach will be used for future intakes,” he said during Ministers’ Question Time at the Dewan Negara today.
He said this in reply to a supplementary question from Senator Datuk Iskandar Dzulkarnain Abdul Khalid who wanted to know the fate of university graduates who have yet to gain teaching placements.
Meanwhile, Radzi informed that 18,702 Grade DG41 education service officers have been recruited on a one-off basis in a special recruitment drive to fill teaching vacancies in MoE schools under the Education Services Commission.
“As of March 28, some 13,255 new teachers have succeeded in getting their placements, while the remaining 515 will be placed from April 11.
“Based on the latest status, there are still 4,932 vacancies under this special recruitment that must be filled by qualified candidates,” he said in response to Iskandar Dzulkarnain’s original question on the one-off teacher intake status as announced by the government.
Radzi also said MoE found there is a shortage of graduates with an education degree for English and Islamic Education subjects, adding that it was committed to getting enough teachers for the two subjects. – Bernama, March 29, 2022
