STUDENTS, the future of the nation, are not the only ones having problems being in school. Teachers, the architects of that future, are also having issues with being in school.
For years they have tried to get the Education Ministry to lend them its ears, but to no avail. Listening, it appears, isn't the ministry's forte. Could it be that those who are telling teachers what and how to teach do not know much about teaching?
Perhaps placing more seasoned teachers in top posts at the ministry may be a good cure. The years of silence have been deafening. Left with no option, the teachers choose to retire early. And in hordes. If 6,000 teachers in the last two years don't add up to an exodus, we don't know what does.
The situation is dire. According to a former education minister, the number of teachers going on early retirement had almost equalled the number of teachers going on compulsory retirement. It has been so since 2017. He had promised to study the reasons behind the exodus. Now that he has been "retired" off by the politics of the election, the promise remains unfulfilled.
We are sure that current Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek, who told Parliament of the "6,000 exodus" figure recently, is studying them too. But at some point, the studying must end and solutions must be implemented.
There is a quick way out, though. Putrajaya must listen to the teachers. They, too, have a valid story. Teachers are a burdened lot. They are being asked to do things that have nothing to do with teaching. Most of the tasks are best done by school administrators. They are called teachers for a reason.
Teachers teach five classes on average, which means spending hours at home and at school preparing lesson plans, teaching, grading and filling forms for all the preceding tasks. Many are up at 5am getting ready to put in a day's work in school and then to return home to continue working until 10pm or 11pm.
Perhaps no one takes more work home than teachers do. Take marking for example. It used to be a simple task, but rules imposed by those who rule them from Putrajaya have turned it into a complex piece of work.
Grouse-filled teachers say they are putting in more hours like never before. Not just in schools, but at home too. Burning the midnight oil isn't just an idiom to be taught. But tinkerers can't help but tinker.
Putrajaya needs to do something now to reduce teacher workload. It can start with how schools are being managed from afar. Badly is the verdict of many early retirees. Not all who stay on until compulsory retirement are happy with the state of things in schools either. They hang on because they have a higher pain threshold.
Overburdened teachers are bad news at a few levels.
First, they are obviously bad news for the teachers. Hence the exodus. All work and low pay make teachers go away early.
Second, unresolved grouses will keep future teachers away. Why sign up to be punished when less-punishing positions are available in the private sector? Private schools' recruitment ad copy of "more pay for less hours" will be hard to beat.
Third, and more importantly, overburdened teachers mean students wouldn't get the best out of their teaching. When architects fail, the future doesn't get built.