Or if the ministry fears protests from the new teachers because they were not forewarned, it could do the next best thing: tell the new intakes for the teacher training colleges and university graduates applying to do their diplomas-in-education that they could be posted to the rural areas.
This was what it used to be until it was decided that teachers teach better when they are happy and they are happy when they are posted to schools in or near their hometowns or villages.
Making rural posting compulsory means all teachers will have to serve in villages like those in the upper reaches of the Pahang or Kinabatangan rivers. There are many benefits the schools and teachers can derive from this policy. Most importantly it will solve the problems of the shortage of teachers in rural schools. The presence of young teachers from the cities could also help improve the teaching of English and even of Bahasa Malaysia especially in dialect-bound communities.
It would be a whole new experience for the young teachers who have probably spent all of their lives in cities and towns and they should, therefore, welcome the move. Living in a rural setting might even kindle in them the love of the outdoors and adventure. And should they give in to this love, their total experience may even toughen them up. While their pupils learn from them, the teachers themselves could learn a lot from their pupils and the community in which they live.
A young Indian posted to teach in rural Sabah several years ago still speaks the rarest of the Malaysian languages, the language of the Rungus community among whom he lived for three years as an English language teacher.
Should the government implement this next year the young teachers and their parents should no longer feel anxious about being posted to Bangar or Bukok as the billions that the government has spent on rural development, especially on roads and electricity, have reduced the number of places that can be considered truly remote and isolated.
Article Source : The Sun
