KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Teachers' Union (STU) lauded the Ministry of Education's (MOE) move to implement a special one-off recruitment to address teacher shortage in the state.
Its president Said Saidi hoped the recruitment exercise would take into consideration the preferred options of the candidates to avoid a mismatch of subject, including recruitng them in accordance to the course they took.
"The union also hopes that priority is given to the candidates who are living in the localities and to prevent the school from losing experienced teachers," he said.
Said was referring to the announcement by Senior Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin that his ministry would implement a special one-off recruitment of 18,702 teachers to address shortage problems in Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor and Johor during a virtual press conference in Putrajaya.
"The union also hopes that the ministry will give serious attention to solve the internet connection in the rural areas which hampered the teachers and students from conducting online learning and teaching," he said.
He said the union also hoped that more information technology courses could be conducted to improve the digitisation skills of the teachers and also keep abreast with advancement of technology.
Said called on the government to give priority to teachers to get vaccinated in line with recommendation by United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) executive director Henrita Fore that teachers were also frontliners.
"The teachers' confidence level will be boosted when they are vaccinated since they face students every day," he said.