Wednesday May 13, 2009
Cameron Highlands: The high qualification requirement to join teaching colleges could be discouraging the orang asli from joining the profession, Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Mohd Fuad Zarkashi said.
He also added that orang asli graduates from teachers' training colleges preferred teaching elsewhere but remote areas. He said there was a tendency for orang asli teachers to ask for a transfer to urban schools after serving for a couple of months at schools with majority of orang asli students.
As such, the government plans to set a condition for orang asli teacher trainees to sign a contract to serve at an orang asli majority school upon their graduation.
Mohd Fuad said upon completion of their contract, the teachers were free to ask to be transferred out.
Purposeful visit: (from left) Mohd Fuad, Devamany and Abdul Aziz speaking to some of the orang asli students in SK Pos Betau.
"What the government wants is to have more orang asli teachers to teach their own community so that they can encourage the orang asli children to go back to schools.
"This is because the orang asli teachers can communicate with the children better as they have an understanding of the language and culture," Mohd Fuad said after visiting SK Pos Betau primary school last week.
Pos Betau is an orang asli settlement.
Also present were Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk S.K Devamany, who is also Cameron Highlands MP and state education director Datuk Abdul Aziz Abdul Latiff.
Mohd Fuad said that, currently there were about 80 orang asli teachers in the country and there was a need for more of them to teach at orang asli schools.
He also said the government planned to upgrade orang asli primary schools from Standard One to Standard Six, to also accommodate Form One to Form Three classes in the same school.
This is because most of the students would leave schools after completing their Standard Six to go to some other schools outside their areas to continue their studies in lower secondary.
"Apart from that, if the schools provided hostels, they would have no choice but to concentrate on their studies or else they will disappear from classes after school," he said.
Mohd Fuad said the plan would be discussed further in his post-cabinet meetings soon.
He also said the government would find solutions to the problem of disruption of water and electricity at orang asli schools.
Some schools, he said relied on generator sets for power and tube wells for water supply.
"Some schools used the hybrid solar system for power which turned out to be costly because of its high maintainence,'' he said.
He also visited SK Pos Lenjang and Pos Titom, located in deeper remote areas from Pos Betau, during his official visit to the orang asli schools. -- The Star Metro
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