240 GRADS AWAITING SABAH TEACHING OFFER

240 grads awaiting Sabah teaching offer

Tenom 19/10/2012: No less than 240 education graduates particularly from Universiti Tun Abdul Razak are still unemployed and waiting for offers to be posted as school teachers in Sabah.

Tenom Umno Youth chief Jamawi Jaafar said his party has voiced out their concern regarding the matter including writing a letter of appeal to the Education Ministry for them to consider giving these graduates opportunities and consideration to be absorbed as teachers, on par with their qualification.

"We asked that the Education Ministry take the initiative so that these graduates be given the opportunity to serve in public schools in the State,"

he said when met here on Wednesday.

Jamawi who is also Umno Youth Exco said, a meeting between him and the Minister of Education's Private Secretary and the Ministry's Special Officer (Teachers unit) in Putrajaya, revealed that the ministry only hires graduates from public institutions of higher learning (IPTA) and Teachers Training Institute.

Therefore, he said, Tenom Umno Youth is pressing the ministry so that teachers produced by private institutions of higher learning (IPTS) such as Universiti Tun Abdul Razak are given the chance to teach especially in rural schools to accommodate the existing shortage of teachers.

"Most of the parents of these graduates have high hopes, so surely they would be disappointed when their children fail to secure jobs that would secure the future of their families," said Jamawi.

According to Jamawi, if the matter is not solved amicably, the Ministry of Higher Education should drop the Bachelor of Education course at Universiti Tun Abdul Razak if graduates from private universities could not be hired to teach at government schools and government-assisted schools.

"This step is the best so that our educated youths in the State would not become victims of bureaucracy and would not choose to study education in private universities," he said.

In the meantime, Jamawi hoped the government would assist those who are now facing this dilemma so that they would be able to contribute to the development of the country.

"This is so that the education they have received could be put to use in order to improve our education standard," he said.