Dr Annuar: 50 pct of S’wak’s teacher vacancies to be filled by second half of 2024

KUCHING (Nov 24): The Ministry of Education (MoE) will fill 50 per cent of the some 3,000 vacancies for teachers in Sarawak by the second half of next year, said Datuk Dr Annuar Rapaee.

The Education, Innovation and Talent Development Deputy Minister said this followed a joint meeting between his ministry and its federal counterparts to address the long-standing issue.

“Based on a joint meeting held in Kuching recently between my ministry, MoE, and SPP (Education Service Commission), both parties, MoE and SPP, are committed to resolving the issue by the second half of 2024. My ministry will be actively involved in the process,” he said in reply to Wilfred Yap (GPS – Kota Sentosa) during the question-and-answer session in the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) today.

Dr Annuar said as of Sept 30, Sarawak is short of 3,076 teachers – 819 for secondary schools and 2,257 for primary schools.

“During the meeting, they agreed that by February 2024, 819 secondary school teachers should be resolved, and the shortage of primary school teachers, 752 teachers will be resolved by June 2024,” he said.

He said this will leave Sarawak short of 1,505 teachers for primary schools.

Dr Annuar said he hoped a solution through the recruitment of unemployed non-teacher local graduates could be reached to maintain the 90:10 ratio of local teachers to those from outside the state.

“We have proposed to the Ministry of Education to use what we call as the contract of service, where the graduates, non-teacher graduates are to be employed and this devolution of powers, the recruitment to be carried out by the Education Ministry.

“We hope that this can be it can be implemented to resolve the shortage of teachers issue in Sarawak