Teachers, the architects of Malaysia's future, are leaving the profession in hordes, early.
According to yesterday's editorial of Mingguan Malaysia, the number of teachers opting for early retirement has now equalled those going on compulsory retirement.
True, not all those who are retiring early are calling it quits solely because of pressure.
According to the National Union of the Teaching Profession, there are 10 other reasons why teachers leave early, but the burden of non-teaching tasks is at the top of the list.
Malaysian teachers are one pressured lot. Not by teaching, but by other chores that are so far removed from the profession. Like keeping the premises clean as janitors do.
We wonder if they are asked to bring their own brooms and mops. Not that we know of, but we understand from the editorial, which quotes an educator from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, that they do bring their own printer and A4 paper to print work-related materials.
In the words of one teacher, who wants to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, from last year, her school was allotted only one ream of A4 printing paper per year. At this rate, a tidy sum of a teacher's salary will be eaten up by such unrelated expenditure.
Like Mingguan Malaysia, we, too, wonder if the officers in the Education Ministry and state Education Departments surrender a portion of their salary thus.
These aren't new laments, but aged ones which the people in Putrajaya, including the ministers who come and go as elections dictate, know only too well. But they appear to be solution-averse.
Perhaps they are more interested in crafting highfalutin grand strategies that float 30,000 feet above the ground. These may read nice on paper, but they are really far from nice.
What's worse, when such strategies hit the school ground in the shape of new programmes — yes, they do every time a new officer or minister takes over — they sap the energy of teachers to no end.
It is time those in Putrajaya and elsewhere in the states acted to ease the burden of teachers. Here is how to do it.
Start at the very top. Make sure that those who "rule" and "reign" over the teachers know what teaching is all about. And ensure they come marked with "passion".
Next, allot more money for education. Granted, Malaysia has made the largest education budget for this year at RM56.2 billion, but if a school gets only a ream of printing paper, then obviously 16 per cent of the national budget isn't enough.
Malaysia also needs to work on the student-teacher ratio. According to NUTP secretary-general Wang Heng Suan, data suggests 1.5 teachers to a class of 35 to 40 people. But a teacher is not limited to 40 students.
On average, a teacher teaches five classes, meaning burning the midnight oil, preparing lesson plans, grading and filling forms for most of them.
To Wang, the solution is simple. Just don't make teachers do things that have nothing to do with teaching. We can't agree more.
Administration work must not be passed on to teachers. What is more, keeping the school premises teaching-and-learning ready.
Schools must be given the money to hire people to do all that is necessary to be a school properly so-called. Teachers can't be the be-all that Putrajaya wants them to be.