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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Teachers’ union says no to 9-hour policy

November 13, 2011 The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 13 – The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) today urged Putrajaya to revoke the nine hours a day teaching policy for school teachers, as a study has shown it was not beneficial. NUTP also said that the new policy was not suitable at the moment as many schools lack comfortable facilities for teachers.

The new policy will be implemented January 2012 onwards in four states – Melaka, Sarawak, Pahang and Johor – and will affect about 5,000 teachers from primary and secondary institutions. NUTP president Hashim Adnan the new policy would not bring positive results if school facilities and workload of the teachers were considered. “Moreover, teachers are not compelled to work nine hours a day like other services. As the minister said (today), teachers have to have enough rest and they actually work more than nine hours,” he told The Malaysian Insider today. Hashim added that the policy was not popular among teachers, therefore “why should the government go ahead with it?”

He explained that the education ministry should conduct a study before implementing the policy. Under this new policy, morning school teachers are required to be in school from 7.30am until 4.30pm whereas afternoon school teachers are required to be on duty at 9.30am to 6.30pm. Yesterday, deputy education minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong had urged teachers not to ‘panic’ with the new policy. However, Hashim said it was best to forgo the new policy.

“These early signs show that the policy is not going to work, so just revoke it. It’s a waste of time to conduct the study,” he said, adding he hoped the public service department will look into this case especially the facilities at work. “If we were to sit at work for nine hours, we need to have comfortable facilities. Staff in other agencies have tables, a comfortable environment, but not in schools.”

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