KUALA LUMPUR – The Education Ministry has held a meeting with the Education Service Commission (SPP) to address complaints of alleged bias and breach of procedures as raised by applicants to the special one-off recruitment of teachers scheme.
Astro Awani reported today that Deputy Education Minister II Datuk Mohamad Alamin admitted to there being weaknesses in the application system which must be rectified.
“We admit that there are technicalities in our system requiring fine-tuning and I have asked SPP to look into how we can improve our recruitment of teachers.
“This programme is not the first nor the last of its kind,” he was quoted as saying.
“I believe that there will be similar programmes in the future, and during that time, we will fix any weaknesses that had previously occurred,” Alamin reportedly told journalists in Batu Pahat today.
His comments come in the wake of a group of education graduates crying foul over apparent flaws and alleged misconduct in the scheme, which was announced by Education Minister Datuk Mohd Radzi Md Jidin on June 20 last year.
Supported by human rights group Suara Rakyat Malaysia, the group of about 13 prospective educators had brought their grievances to Putrajaya and handed over a memorandum detailing their complaints to a ministry official on March 7.
Besides accusing the SPP, which is responsible for appointing candidates, of acting “without transparency and integrity,” the group also alleged that more than 100 applicants had been unfairly dropped from the scheme due to technical errors in the system.
“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,” group spokeswoman Siti Khadijah said, adding that the admission of wrongdoing is proof of the ambiguous and dishonest nature of SPP when selecting candidates. – The Vibes, March 11, 2022
