Burdened with too much of work, teachers are becoming 'sad and grumpy', revealed a survey carried out by the National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP).

Parents interviewed had also complained about the lack of chirpiness and smiles in the classrooms these days.

According to the union, teachers are bogged-down by an insurmountable workload above and beyond their role to teach.

They are tasked with undue clerical duties while having to attend and often run additional 'ad-hoc programmes'.

And to rub salt into the wound, the payslip that comes at the end of the month does not give the teachers any reason to jump with joy as well.

In a recent interview with malaysiakini, NUTP secretary-general Lok Yim Pheng said the reason teachers often send proposals and write grievance letters to the Education Ministry is because they are displeased with their working environment and the education system.

"Teachers are very unhappy and stressed when working in an environment where - besides their core business of teaching - they have more duties such as clerical work and ad-hoc programmes.

"To be fair, the ministry is trying to reduce the workload by setting up a task force to address the issue," she added.

During the hour-long interview, Lok herself was inundated with numerous calls from teachers with problems.

Change the system

"Teachers also feel the need to change the education system where children shouldn't be sent to school to only obtain all A's in exams. It all seems to be about how many A's parents want from their children.

"What about extra curricular activities and sports? There should be a balance in all," she pointed out.

Lok, who has been the union secretary-general for the past two years, said a student's psychological, spiritual and physical dimensions should exist alongside academic aspirations.

She is convinced that students, upon leaving school, need not only walk out into the real world with sterling results but also skills that will cater to the diverse job market.

"See, sometimes some groups of students can't afford to further their studies and need to work early on. However, they may not have the necessary skills catered for the market.

"Therefore, models such as vocational schools are very important. Furthermore, recent SPM (high school examination) results have shown that technical and vocational schools are doing better than other schools," she said.

Lok was keen on promoting the 'trade schools' concept - popular in Taiwan - to the country. These schools will have syllabuses made specific to various job themes.

Trade schools will train students, apart from learning academic subjects, to hone skills and knowledge in various fields such as agriculture, business and commerce, beauty and fashion, handcraft and home-sciences.

This in turn, she said, would benefit the nation as it would discourage its dependency on foreign labour.

Promotion and wages

Meanwhile, commenting on the present wage and promotion structure in the profession, Lok said it needed a change.

"A non-graduate teacher gets a starting monthly salary of RM1,124.57 while a graduate teacher initially earns RM1,474.65 per month. There is a yearly increment of about RM40. These rates are the same across the country.

"This is very low, compared to the private sector, especially for teachers in a metropolitan city. This is why there is a great migration of teachers going back to their hometowns to teach. They cannot bear the high costs of living in larger towns and cities," Lok, who ended her 28-year romance with the profession in 2003 through an optional retirement, added.

Lok highlighted that some teachers were forced to work part-time doing jobs such as driving taxis, trading at wet and dry markets, direct-selling and of course, conducting tuition classes.

NUTP, which has over 130,000 members, also found that job-promotion exercises in schools and the new-promotion system introduced by the ministry does not acknowledge the contribution of long-serving teachers.

"The new-system is good as it overcomes the previous problem of abuse as promotion was solely left in the hands of the principal.

"However now, senior teachers are having difficulties getting through the promotion tests. They are rusty when it comes to sitting for examinations. The exams, which I would describe as general-knowledge-based competency tests, are difficult to pass as well," Lok said.

She recommended that senior teachers - especially those with less than five years till retirement - be exempted from the examinations and be promoted based on their long-standing contributions to the profession.

Q&A: Treat teachers with dignity