Teachers in a trap

educate@thestar.com.my

Just earlier this month, it was reported that teachers were considering holding a demonstration to highlight their plight of being laden with “irrelevant work”.

‘’We are mostly doing clerical work in schools and among our duties include collecting irrelevant data, attending courses, organising programmes and doing correspondence work.

In a survey carried out by the NUTP in 2005, it was reported that almost seven out of 10 teachers say that they are under stress.

“Aside from marking students’ essays and homework, we have to fill out their personal records, health records and various assessment reports,” says secondary school teacher Sharon*.

Teachers have to balance the difficult task of managing parents’ expectations for a string of A’s and instilling a love for learning in their students.

“We have to coordinate sports days, graduation days, camps, competitions — all of which are taxing.

“I barely have time to prepare my lesson plans at the moment.

“At the very least, I think that teachers should be given roles that are relevant to their interests and expertise; that way, they can focus on being good at a particular area for the benefit of their students.”

“Parents say we are not pushing their children hard enough academically,” she says.

“I’ve even had complaints from parents that I’m not doling out enough homework!”

“In reality, I have to force them to mug for examinations so that they have a string of A’s to show their parents.”

He says that parents are too quick to blame teachers.“Some students just do not respond to reasoning, no matter how hard you try.

“I think what makes them bold is knowing that they’ll have their parents defending their actions,” he says.