Education Minister Datuk Seri Fadhlina Sidek has highlighted several measures taken by her ministry to reduce teachers’ workload, including scrapping school competitions that have little direct impact on learning.
She said competitions such as best-looking toilets, most attractive school compounds and best classrooms, along with other similar programmes, had been abolished as part of the government’s initial seven measures to ease the burden on teachers.
“Remember the seven initial steps we announced to reduce teachers’ workload? This is one of them. The others, we will talk about one by one,” she said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
Fadhlina said the decision was made because she understood that organising a competition involved far more than simply decorating a particular area or preparing a school for judging.
Behind each competition, she said, teachers had to attend meetings, make preparations, compile documentation and prepare reports.
“All of that requires the time and energy of teachers,” she said.
She stressed that unnecessary programmes would be removed gradually so teachers could redirect their efforts towards their most important responsibility — teaching and educating students.
“That is why we are starting to remove unnecessary programmes one by one, so teachers can return their focus to what matters most, which is teaching and educating our children,” she added.
